Principle:Ollama Ollama Model Resolution And Download
| Knowledge Sources | |
|---|---|
| Domains | Systems, Networking, Storage |
| Last Updated | 2026-02-14 00:00 GMT |
Overview
A content-addressable model distribution mechanism that resolves model names to registry manifests and downloads model blobs with integrity verification and caching.
Description
Model Resolution and Download is the process of translating a human-readable model name (e.g., llama3:latest) into a set of content-addressable blobs stored locally. This follows a pattern inspired by OCI container registries: a model name resolves to a manifest containing layer digests, and each layer is downloaded as a SHA-256 addressed blob.
The system supports streaming progress reporting, HTTP range requests for resumable downloads, parallel chunk downloading, cache-hit detection (skipping already-downloaded blobs), and authentication via registry tokens. This ensures efficient bandwidth usage and resilient transfers even over unreliable connections.
Usage
Use this principle when implementing model distribution systems that need efficient, resumable, integrity-verified downloads of large binary artifacts. It applies to any system that uses content-addressable storage with remote registry backing.
Theoretical Basis
The download process follows a layered resolution pattern:
- Name Parsing: Parse the model name into host, namespace, model, and tag components.
- Manifest Fetch: Retrieve the model manifest from the registry, which lists all content layers with their SHA-256 digests and media types.
- Cache Check: For each layer, check if a local blob with the matching digest already exists.
- Blob Download: For missing blobs, download using HTTP GET with range request support for resumability.
- Integrity Verification: After download, compute SHA-256 of the blob and compare against the manifest digest.
- Manifest Write: Write the manifest locally to register the model for use.