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ComfyUI with DreamShaper and FLUX.1

Run ComfyUI on a GPU-enabled machine managed by CloudRift and learn how to:

  • Start a container with ComfyUI.
  • Download DreamShaper-V8 or FLUX.1 checkpoints
  • Generate images using Comfy web UI.
Girl KnightMecha
Images generated using the DreamShaper V∞ model from Civitai.

Pull and Run the ComfyUI Image​

Once you have rented a GPU (rent at https://neuralrack.ai) and installed CloudRift CLI, run the following Docker command to pull and start the Docker container for ComfyUI:

rift docker run -p 8188 -e WEB_ENABLE_AUTH=false --name comfyui -it --rm ghcr.io/ai-dock/comfyui:latest-cuda

The rift docker run command will automatically select the executor (machine) in your rift cluster and start the ComfyUI container. If you have multiple executors in your cluster, you can specify the executor using -x <executor-name> command line parameter. Names of the executors in your cluster can be found by running rift cluster info.

Here's what this command does:

  • rift docker run: Pulls the Docker image and starts the container.
  • -p 8188: Maps port 8188 on your server to port 8188 on the container, allowing you to access Comfy web UI.
  • -e WEB_ENABLE_AUTH=false: Passes WEB_ENABLE_AUTH environment variable to the container. We disable authentication for simplicity of this tutorial.
  • --name comfyui (optional): Specifies the name for the container allowing you to reference it by this name in other commands, e.g. rift docker exec used below to download the checkpoint.
  • -it: Runs the container in interactive mode with a pseudo-TTY, ensuring that container is not stopped while you keep the terminal open (note that it will stop if you close the terminal).
  • --rm (optional): Removes the container when it stops. This is useful when you need to start the container multiple times. If you don't specify it, you'll need to invoke rift docker rm <container-id> to remove the container manually. However, if the container is removed, you'll lose all the data stored in it and will need to download the checkpoint again.
  • ghcr.io/ai-dock/comfyui:latest-cuda : Specifies the Docker image to be run.

After running this command, you'll see that the image being pulled and the container started. If the image is already downloaded, it will start the container right away. There will be a lot of log messages, here is how this will approximately look like:

$ rift docker run --name comfyui -p 8188 -e WEB_ENABLE_AUTH=false -d --rm ghcr.io/ai-dock/comfyui:latest-cuda
Pulling image 'ai-dock/comfyui:latest-cuda'
[==================================================>]  221.3MB/221.3MB

... lots of log messages ...

==> /var/log/supervisor/quicktunnel-3.log <==
2024-09-09T23:16:56Z INF Registered tunnel connection connIndex=0 connection=264e7605-3daf-47dc-a39b-ec2f698b757d event=0 ip=198.41.192.227 location=sjc01 protocol=http2

==> /var/log/supervisor/supervisor.log <==
2024-09-09 23:16:56,219 INFO exited: sshd (exit status 0; expected)

==> /var/log/supervisor/syncthing.log <==
[NFAZS] 2024/09/09 23:17:11 INFO: quic://0.0.0.0:22000 detected NAT type: Port restricted NAT
[NFAZS] 2024/09/09 23:17:11 INFO: quic://0.0.0.0:22000 resolved external address quic://98.42.0.120:22000 (via stun.syncthing.net:3478)
[NFAZS] 2024/09/09 23:17:12 INFO: Detected 0 NAT services
[NFAZS] 2024/09/09 23:18:10 INFO: Joined relay relay://193.160.32.204:22067

caution

If you need to close the terminal window, but you want your container to keep running, press Ctrl-P followed by Ctrl-Q. This will detach the terminal from the container.

If you press Ctrl-C or Ctrl-D, the container will stop. Also, you can specify -d flag instead of -it to run the container in the background when launching it.

Ensure ComfyUI is Up and Running​

To confirm that the container is running, you can run rift docker ps command. It will show you the list of running containers:

$ rift docker ps
 EXECUTOR                              CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                                COMMAND  CREATED              STATUS   NAMES 
 0b94918a-67b4-11ef-899d-77923e9a9038  37803ae894d9  ghcr.io/ai-dock/comfyui:latest-cuda  init.sh  2024-08-31 17:39:29  Running  /comfyui

Open the browser and type in http://{node-IP-address}:8188 URL. Replace {node-IP-address} with the IP address received while renting the CloudRift GPU, or run rift cluster info to get the IP address of the executor. The output should look like this:

rift cluster info

Download Checkpoint​

A lot of checkpoints are available at Civit.ai. In this tutorial we will be using the DreamShaper-V8 checkpoint.

To download the checkpoint:

  1. Connect to the container using rift docker exec -it comfyui bash command:
  2. Run cd /opt/ComfyUI/models/checkpoints/ to navigate to the checkpoints directory.
  3. Run wget https://civitai.com/api/download/models/128713 --content-disposition command to download the checkpoint.

Here is the example of running the aforementioned command:

$ rift docker -x 0b94918a-67b4-11ef-899d-77923e9a9038 exec -it comfyui bash
(comfyui) root@957ce9414eea:/opt# cd /opt/ComfyUI/models/checkpoints
(comfyui) root@957ce9414eea:/opt/ComfyUI/models/checkpoints# wget https://civitai.com/api/download/models/128713 --content-disposition
Resolving civitai.com (civitai.com)... 172.67.12.143, 104.22.18.237, 104.22.19.237, ...
... lots of log messages ...
dreamshaper_8.safet   100%[=====================================>]   1.99G  12.1MB/s    in 60s     
2024-08-31 17:54:55 (33.9 MB/s) - ‘dreamshaper_8.safetensors’ saved [2132625894/2132625894]

Start Using ComfyUI​

Open the browser and type in http://{node-IP-address}:8188 URL. Replace {node-IP-address} with the IP address of the executor that you can get by running rift cluster info command.

You should see the ComfyUI web interface. Click "Queue Prompt" to generate images using the DreamShaper checkpoint.

comfyui

Generate with FLUX.1​

You can download FLUX.1 checkpoint from the Comfy Flux Checkpoint Page. Right-click on the download button and select "Copy link". Then use the wget command to download the checkpoint to the container.

Here is an example:

$ rift docker exec -it comfyui bash
(comfyui) root@957ce9414eea:/opt# cd /opt/ComfyUI/models/checkpoints
(comfyui) root@957ce9414eea:/opt/ComfyUI/models/checkpoints# wget https://huggingface.co/Comfy-Org/flux1-schnell/resolve/main/flux1-schnell-fp8.safetensors
... lots of log messages ...
flux1-schnell-fp8.safetensors   100%[=====================================>]  16.05G   190MB/s    in 58s
2024-09-09 23:10:44 (282 MB/s) - ‘flux1-schnell-fp8.safetensors’ saved [17236328572/17236328572]

Refresh the ComfyUI web interface. You should see the FLUX.1 checkpoint available in the "ckpt_name" field of the "Load Checkpoint" module. Select the FLUX.1 checkpoint.

To get better results set cfg=1.0.

Hit "Queue Prompt" to generate image - it should take around 4 seconds on RTX 4090.

Don't forget to stop the executor once you're done using it to avoid unnecessary charges.