diff --git a/container-images/scripts/llama-server.sh b/container-images/scripts/llama-server.sh
index 1997509b..e906ec6a 100644
--- a/container-images/scripts/llama-server.sh
+++ b/container-images/scripts/llama-server.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 if [ -n "${MODEL_CHAT_FORMAT}" ]; then
+
+    # handle the case of llama.cpp python chat format
+    if [ "${MODEL_CHAT_FORMAT}" = "llama-2" ]; then
+        MODEL_CHAT_FORMAT="llama2"
+    fi
     CHAT_FORMAT="--chat_template ${MODEL_CHAT_FORMAT}"
 fi