OpenRLHF - High-Performance RLHF Training

Quick start

OpenRLHF is a Ray-based RLHF framework optimized for distributed training with vLLM inference acceleration.

Installation:

# Launch Docker container
docker run --runtime=nvidia -it --rm --shm-size="10g" --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN \
  -v $PWD:/openrlhf nvcr.io/nvidia/pytorch:25.02-py3 bash

# Uninstall conflicts
sudo pip uninstall xgboost transformer_engine flash_attn pynvml -y

# Install OpenRLHF with vLLM
pip install openrlhf[vllm]

PPO Training (Hybrid Engine):

ray start --head --node-ip-address 0.0.0.0 --num-gpus 8

ray job submit --address="http://127.0.0.1:8265" \
  --runtime-env-json='{"working_dir": "/openrlhf"}' \
  -- python3 -m openrlhf.cli.train_ppo_ray \
  --ref_num_nodes 1 --ref_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --reward_num_nodes 1 --reward_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --critic_num_nodes 1 --critic_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --actor_num_nodes 1 --actor_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --vllm_num_engines 4 --vllm_tensor_parallel_size 2 \
  --colocate_all_models \
  --vllm_gpu_memory_utilization 0.5 \
  --pretrain OpenRLHF/Llama-3-8b-sft-mixture \
  --reward_pretrain OpenRLHF/Llama-3-8b-rm-700k \
  --save_path ./output/llama3-8b-rlhf \
  --micro_train_batch_size 8 --train_batch_size 128 \
  --micro_rollout_batch_size 16 --rollout_batch_size 1024 \
  --max_epochs 1 --prompt_max_len 1024 --generate_max_len 1024 \
  --zero_stage 3 --bf16 \
  --actor_learning_rate 5e-7 --critic_learning_rate 9e-6 \
  --init_kl_coef 0.01 --normalize_reward \
  --gradient_checkpointing --packing_samples \
  --vllm_enable_sleep --deepspeed_enable_sleep

GRPO Training (Group Normalized Policy Optimization):

# Same command as PPO, but add:
--advantage_estimator group_norm

Common workflows

Workflow 1: Full RLHF pipeline (SFT → Reward Model → PPO)

Step 1: Train reward model (DPO):

deepspeed --module openrlhf.cli.train_rm \
  --save_path ./output/llama3-8b-rm \
  --save_steps -1 --logging_steps 1 \
  --eval_steps -1 --train_batch_size 256 \
  --micro_train_batch_size 1 --pretrain meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3-8B \
  --bf16 --max_epochs 1 --max_len 8192 \
  --zero_stage 3 --learning_rate 9e-6 \
  --dataset OpenRLHF/preference_dataset_mixture2_and_safe_pku \
  --apply_chat_template --chosen_key chosen \
  --rejected_key rejected --flash_attn --gradient_checkpointing

Step 2: PPO training:

ray start --head --node-ip-address 0.0.0.0 --num-gpus 8

ray job submit --address="http://127.0.0.1:8265" \
  -- python3 -m openrlhf.cli.train_ppo_ray \
  --ref_num_nodes 1 --ref_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --reward_num_nodes 1 --reward_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --critic_num_nodes 1 --critic_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --actor_num_nodes 1 --actor_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --vllm_num_engines 4 --vllm_tensor_parallel_size 2 \
  --colocate_all_models \
  --pretrain OpenRLHF/Llama-3-8b-sft-mixture \
  --reward_pretrain ./output/llama3-8b-rm \
  --save_path ./output/llama3-8b-ppo \
  --micro_train_batch_size 8 --train_batch_size 128 \
  --micro_rollout_batch_size 16 --rollout_batch_size 1024 \
  --max_epochs 1 --prompt_max_len 1024 --generate_max_len 1024 \
  --zero_stage 3 --bf16 \
  --actor_learning_rate 5e-7 --critic_learning_rate 9e-6 \
  --init_kl_coef 0.01 --normalize_reward \
  --vllm_enable_sleep --deepspeed_enable_sleep

Workflow 2: GRPO training (no critic model needed)

Memory-efficient alternative to PPO:

ray job submit --address="http://127.0.0.1:8265" \
  -- python3 -m openrlhf.cli.train_ppo_ray \
  --advantage_estimator group_norm \
  --ref_num_nodes 1 --ref_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --reward_num_nodes 1 --reward_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --actor_num_nodes 1 --actor_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
  --vllm_num_engines 4 --vllm_tensor_parallel_size 2 \
  --colocate_all_models \
  --pretrain OpenRLHF/Llama-3-8b-sft-mixture \
  --reward_pretrain OpenRLHF/Llama-3-8b-rm-700k \
  --save_path ./output/llama3-8b-grpo \
  --micro_train_batch_size 8 --train_batch_size 128 \
  --micro_rollout_batch_size 16 --rollout_batch_size 1024 \
  --max_epochs 1 --bf16 \
  --actor_learning_rate 5e-7 \
  --init_kl_coef 0.01 --use_kl_loss --kl_estimator k3 \
  --normalize_reward --no_advantage_std_norm

Key GRPO parameters:

• --advantage_estimator group_norm - Enables GRPO
• --use_kl_loss - KL loss from GRPO paper
• --kl_estimator k3 - Loss function (k2 ≈ k1)
• --no_advantage_std_norm - Disables std normalization

Workflow 3: DPO training (preference optimization)

Simpler alternative without reward model:

deepspeed --module openrlhf.cli.train_dpo \
  --save_path ./output/llama3-8b-dpo \
  --save_steps -1 --logging_steps 1 \
  --eval_steps -1 --train_batch_size 256 \
  --micro_train_batch_size 2 --pretrain meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3-8B \
  --bf16 --max_epochs 1 --max_len 8192 \
  --zero_stage 3 --learning_rate 5e-7 --beta 0.1 \
  --dataset OpenRLHF/preference_dataset_mixture2_and_safe_pku \
  --apply_chat_template --chosen_key chosen \
  --rejected_key rejected --flash_attn --gradient_checkpointing

When to use vs alternatives

Use OpenRLHF when:

• Training large models (7B-70B+) with RL
• Need vLLM inference acceleration
• Want distributed architecture with Ray
• Have multi-node GPU cluster
• Need PPO/GRPO/RLOO/DPO in one framework

Algorithm selection:

• PPO: Maximum control, best for complex rewards
• GRPO: Memory-efficient, no critic needed
• RLOO: Modified PPO with per-token KL
• REINFORCE++: More stable than GRPO, faster than PPO
• DPO: Simplest, no reward model needed

Use alternatives instead:

• TRL: Single-node training, simpler API
• veRL: ByteDance's framework for 671B models
• DeepSpeedChat: Integrated with DeepSpeed ecosystem

Common issues

Issue: GPU OOM with large models

Disable model colocation:

# Remove --colocate_all_models flag
# Allocate separate GPUs for each model
--actor_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
--critic_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
--reward_num_gpus_per_node 8 \
--ref_num_gpus_per_node 8

Issue: DeepSpeed GPU index out of range

Set environment variable:

export RAY_EXPERIMENTAL_NOSET_CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=1

Issue: Training instability

Use Hybrid Engine instead of async:

--colocate_all_models \
--vllm_enable_sleep \
--deepspeed_enable_sleep

Adjust KL coefficient:

--init_kl_coef 0.05  # Increase from 0.01

Issue: Slow generation during PPO

Enable vLLM acceleration:

--vllm_num_engines 4 \
--vllm_tensor_parallel_size 2 \
--vllm_gpu_memory_utilization 0.5

Advanced topics

Hybrid Engine GPU sharing: See references/hybrid-engine.md for vLLM sleep mode, DeepSpeed sleep mode, and optimal node allocation. Algorithm comparison: See references/algorithm-comparison.md for PPO vs GRPO vs RLOO vs REINFORCE++ benchmarks and hyperparameters. Multi-node setup: See references/multi-node-training.md for Ray cluster configuration and fault tolerance. Custom reward functions: See references/custom-rewards.md for reinforced fine-tuning and agent RLHF.

Hardware requirements

• GPU: NVIDIA A100/H100 recommended
• VRAM:

- 7B model: 8× A100 40GB (Hybrid Engine)

- 70B model: 48× A100 80GB (vLLM:Actor:Critic = 1:1:1)

• Multi-node: Ray cluster with InfiniBand recommended
• Docker: NVIDIA PyTorch container 25.02+

Performance:

• 2× faster than DeepSpeedChat
• vLLM inference acceleration
• Hybrid Engine minimizes GPU idle time

Resources

• Docs: https://github.com/OpenRLHF/OpenRLHF
• Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.11143
• Examples: https://github.com/OpenRLHF/OpenRLHF/tree/main/examples
• Discord: Community support