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When you use Slurm, it’s common practice to create a custom image with task-specific software and dependencies installed. CoreWeave publishes SUNK images that you can customize at every stage of deployment. This page explains how to build a custom SUNK image from a published base image and configure it for use on compute and login nodes. It’s intended for cluster administrators who prepare SUNK deployments that require additional software or dependencies beyond the published images.

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Customize a published SUNK image

You can customize an existing SUNK image with a Dockerfile by following these steps.
  1. Browse the container registry for a published SUNK image that closely matches your requirements.
  2. Create a Dockerfile using the FROM directive to specify the selected base image. For example: 
    FROM coreweave/sunk-base:latest
# Your customizations go here...
    For more information about using the FROM instruction, see the Docker documentation.
  3. Add the needed software and dependencies by extending the Dockerfile with custom instructions.
  4. To create a custom image, build the Dockerfile.
After this procedure, you have a custom container image based on a published SUNK image, ready to reference from your SUNK deployment configuration.

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Use custom images

After you customize a SUNK image with a Dockerfile, you must define the image in the appropriate section of the values.yaml file, depending on the type of node the image targets. This process is the same for all Slurm node types, including the Node Controller and database. The following examples demonstrate how to define SUNK images for a compute node and for a login node.

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Define a custom compute node image

Define custom images for compute nodes in the compute.nodes.<node-type> section of the values.yaml file. Specify the custom image, including the repository and tag, for each compute node definition in compute.nodes, as in the following example: 
compute:
  nodes:
    my-node-type:
      image:
        repository: custom-slurmd
        tag: 1.0.0

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Define a custom login node image

Define custom images for login nodes in the login.image section of the values.yaml file. Specify the custom image, including the repository and tag, in login.image, as in the following example: 
login:
  image:
    repository: custom-controller
    tag: 1.0.0
Last modified on May 27, 2026