Open WebUI with Ollama

Configure Docker permissions

To easily manage containers using NVIDIA Sync, you must be able to run Docker commands without sudo.

Open the Terminal app from NVIDIA Sync to start an interactive SSH session and test Docker access. In the terminal, run:

docker ps

If you see a permission denied error (something like permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket), add your user to the docker group so that you don't need to run the command with sudo .

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

Test Docker access again. In the terminal, run:

docker ps

Verify Docker setup and pull container

Open a new Terminal app from NVIDIA Sync and pull the Open WebUI container image with integrated Ollama on your DGX Spark:

docker pull ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:ollama

Once the container image is downloaded, continue to setup NVIDIA Sync.

Open NVIDIA Sync Settings

• Click on the NVIDIA Sync icon in your system tray or taskbar to open the main application window.
• Click the gear icon in the top right corner to open the Settings window.
• Click on the "Custom" tab to access Custom Ports configuration.

Add Open WebUI custom port configuration

A Custom port is used to automatically start the Open WebUI container and set up port forwarding.

Click the "Add New" button on the Custom tab.

Fill out the form with these values:

• Name: Open WebUI
• Port: 12000
• Auto open in browser at the following path: Check this checkbox
• Start Script: Copy and paste this entire script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

NAME="open-webui"
IMAGE="ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:ollama"

cleanup() {
  echo "Signal received; stopping ${NAME}..."
  docker stop "${NAME}" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
  exit 0
}
trap cleanup INT TERM HUP QUIT EXIT

# Ensure Docker CLI and daemon are available
if ! docker info >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "Error: Docker daemon not reachable." >&2
  exit 1
fi

# Already running?
if [ -n "$(docker ps -q --filter "name=^${NAME}$" --filter "status=running")" ]; then
  echo "Container ${NAME} is already running."
else
  # Exists but stopped? Start it.
  if [ -n "$(docker ps -aq --filter "name=^${NAME}$")" ]; then
    echo "Starting existing container ${NAME}..."
    docker start "${NAME}" >/dev/null
  else
    # Not present: create and start it.
    echo "Creating and starting ${NAME}..."
    docker run -d -p 12000:8080 --gpus=all \
      -v open-webui:/app/backend/data \
      -v open-webui-ollama:/root/.ollama \
      --name "${NAME}" "${IMAGE}" >/dev/null
  fi
fi

echo "Running. Press Ctrl+C to stop ${NAME}."
# Keep the script alive until a signal arrives
while :; do sleep 86400; done

• Click the "Add" button to save configuration to your DGX Spark.

Launch Open WebUI

Click on the NVIDIA Sync icon in your system tray or taskbar to open the main application window.

Under the "Custom" section, click on "Open WebUI".

Your default web browser should automatically open to the Open WebUI interface at http://localhost:12000.

Create administrator account

To start using Open WebUI you must create an initial administrator account. This is a local account that you will use to access the Open WebUI interface.

In the Open WebUI interface, click the "Get Started" button at the bottom of the screen.

Fill out the administrator account creation form with your preferred credentials.

Click the registration button to create your account and access the main interface.

Download and configure a model

Next, download a language model with Ollama and configure it for use in Open WebUI. This download happens on your DGX Spark device and may take several minutes.

Click on the "Select a model" dropdown in the top left corner of the Open WebUI interface.

Type gpt-oss:20b in the search field.

Click the Pull "gpt-oss:20b" from Ollama.com button that appears.

Wait for the model download to complete. You can monitor progress in the interface.

Once complete, select "gpt-oss:20b" from the model dropdown.

Test the model

In the chat textarea at the bottom of the Open WebUI interface, enter: Write me a haiku about GPUs

Press Enter to send the message and wait for the model's response.

Stop the Open WebUI

When you are finished with your session and want to stop the Open WebUI server and reclaim resources, close the Open WebUI from NVIDIA Sync.

Click on the NVIDIA Sync icon in your system tray or taskbar to open the main application window.

Under the "Custom" section, click the x icon on the right of the "Open WebUI" entry.

This will close the tunnel and stop the Open WebUI docker container.

Next steps

Try downloading different models from the Ollama library at https://ollama.com/library.

You can monitor GPU and memory usage through the DGX Dashboard available in NVIDIA Sync as you try different models.

If Open WebUI reports an update is available, you can pull the the container image by running this in your terminal:

docker stop open-webui
docker rm open-webui 
docker pull ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:ollama

After the update, launch Open WebUI again from NVIDIA Sync.

Cleanup and rollback

Steps to completely remove the Open WebUI installation and free up resources:

Stop and remove the Open WebUI container:

docker stop open-webui
docker rm open-webui

Remove the downloaded images:

docker rmi ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:ollama

Remove persistent data volumes:

docker volume rm open-webui open-webui-ollama

Remove the Custom App from NVIDIA Sync by opening Settings > Custom tab and deleting the entry.