diff --git a/tests/prefix_caching/test_disable_sliding_window.py b/tests/prefix_caching/test_disable_sliding_window.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..eeac6ab43c05f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/prefix_caching/test_disable_sliding_window.py
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+"""Compare the with and without prefix caching.
+
+Run `pytest tests/prefix_caching/test_prefix_caching.py`.
+"""
+import pytest
+
+from tests.conftest import cleanup
+from vllm import LLM
+
+MODEL_LEN_LEN = [
+    # Example models with sliding window.
+    ("bigcode/starcoder2-3b", 4096, 16384),
+    # ("mistralai/Mistral-7B-v0.1", 4096, 32768), << OOM in CI
+
+    # Confirm model with sliding window works.
+    # config has "use_sliding_window": false
+    ("Qwen/Qwen1.5-0.5B-Chat", 32768, 32768),
+    # config has no sliding window attribute.
+    ("TinyLlama/TinyLlama-1.1B-Chat-v1.0", 2048, 2048),
+]
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("model_len_len", MODEL_LEN_LEN)
+def test_disable_sliding_window(model_len_len, ):
+    model, sliding_len, full_len = model_len_len
+    vllm_disabled_model = LLM(model, disable_sliding_window=True)
+    vllm_disabled_model.generate("Hi my name is")
+    model_config = vllm_disabled_model.llm_engine.model_config
+    assert model_config.max_model_len == sliding_len, (
+        "Max len expected to equal sliding_len of %s, but got %s", sliding_len,
+        model_config.max_model_len)
+
+    del vllm_disabled_model
+    cleanup()
+
+    vllm_enabled_model = LLM(model, disable_sliding_window=False)
+    vllm_enabled_model.generate("Hi my name is")
+    model_config = vllm_enabled_model.llm_engine.model_config
+    assert model_config.max_model_len == full_len, (
+        "Max len expected to equal full_len of %s, but got %s", full_len,
+        model_config.max_model_len)
+
+    del vllm_enabled_model
+    cleanup()
diff --git a/tests/test_config.py b/tests/test_config.py
index 6bc51a53dc07c..7cbdaeca9c4d4 100644
--- a/tests/test_config.py
+++ b/tests/test_config.py
@@ -1,5 +1,29 @@
+import pytest
+
 from vllm.config import ModelConfig
 
+MODEL_IDS_EXPECTED = [
+    ("Qwen/Qwen1.5-7B", 32768),
+    ("mistralai/Mistral-7B-v0.1", 4096),
+    ("mistralai/Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.2", 32768),
+]
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("model_id_expected", MODEL_IDS_EXPECTED)
+def test_disable_sliding_window(model_id_expected):
+    model_id, expected = model_id_expected
+    model_config = ModelConfig(
+        model_id,
+        model_id,
+        tokenizer_mode="auto",
+        trust_remote_code=False,
+        seed=0,
+        dtype="float16",
+        revision=None,
+        disable_sliding_window=True,
+    )
+    assert model_config.max_model_len == expected
+
 
 def test_get_sliding_window():
     TEST_SLIDING_WINDOW = 4096
diff --git a/vllm/attention/layer.py b/vllm/attention/layer.py
index dc7b3940bc9b7..addee160694b0 100644
--- a/vllm/attention/layer.py
+++ b/vllm/attention/layer.py
@@ -30,7 +30,6 @@ def __init__(
         scale: float,
         num_kv_heads: Optional[int] = None,
         alibi_slopes: Optional[List[float]] = None,
-        sliding_window: Optional[int] = None,
         cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
         quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
     ) -> None:
@@ -38,9 +37,11 @@ def __init__(
         if cache_config is not None:
             kv_cache_dtype = cache_config.cache_dtype
             block_size = cache_config.block_size
+            sliding_window = cache_config.sliding_window
         else:
             kv_cache_dtype = "auto"
             block_size = 16
+            sliding_window = None
         if num_kv_heads is None:
             num_kv_heads = num_heads
 
diff --git a/vllm/config.py b/vllm/config.py
index b245a1a3ee6d3..4b256d00a32df 100644
--- a/vllm/config.py
+++ b/vllm/config.py
@@ -69,6 +69,10 @@ class ModelConfig:
         max_seq_len_to_capture: Maximum sequence len covered by CUDA graphs.
             When a sequence has context length larger than this, we fall back
             to eager mode
+        disable_sliding_window: Whether to disable sliding window. If True,
+            we will disable the sliding window functionality of the model.
+            If the model does not support sliding window, this argument is
+            ignored.
         skip_tokenizer_init: If true, skip initialization of tokenizer and
             detokenizer.
         served_model_name: The model name used in metrics tag `model_name`,
@@ -96,6 +100,7 @@ def __init__(
         max_context_len_to_capture: Optional[int] = None,
         max_seq_len_to_capture: Optional[int] = None,
         max_logprobs: int = 5,
+        disable_sliding_window: bool = False,
         skip_tokenizer_init: bool = False,
         served_model_name: Optional[Union[str, List[str]]] = None,
     ) -> None:
@@ -118,14 +123,18 @@ def __init__(
         self.max_seq_len_to_capture = (max_seq_len_to_capture
                                        or max_context_len_to_capture)
         self.max_logprobs = max_logprobs
+        self.disable_sliding_window = disable_sliding_window
         self.skip_tokenizer_init = skip_tokenizer_init
 
         self.hf_config = get_config(self.model, trust_remote_code, revision,
                                     code_revision, rope_scaling)
         self.hf_text_config = get_hf_text_config(self.hf_config)
         self.dtype = _get_and_verify_dtype(self.hf_text_config, dtype)
-        self.max_model_len = _get_and_verify_max_len(self.hf_text_config,
-                                                     max_model_len)
+        self.max_model_len = _get_and_verify_max_len(
+            hf_config=self.hf_text_config,
+            max_model_len=max_model_len,
+            disable_sliding_window=self.disable_sliding_window,
+            sliding_window_len=self.get_hf_config_sliding_window())
         self.served_model_name = get_served_model_name(model,
                                                        served_model_name)
         if not self.skip_tokenizer_init:
@@ -220,7 +229,7 @@ def verify_with_parallel_config(
                 "must be divisible by pipeline parallel size "
                 f"({pipeline_parallel_size}).")
 
-    def get_sliding_window(self) -> Optional[int]:
+    def get_hf_config_sliding_window(self) -> Optional[int]:
         """Get the sliding window size, or None if disabled.
         """
 
@@ -232,6 +241,15 @@ def get_sliding_window(self) -> Optional[int]:
             return None
         return getattr(self.hf_text_config, "sliding_window", None)
 
+    def get_sliding_window(self) -> Optional[int]:
+        """Get the sliding window size, or None if disabled.
+        """
+        # If user disables sliding window, return None.
+        if self.disable_sliding_window:
+            return None
+        # Otherwise get the value from the hf config.
+        return self.get_hf_config_sliding_window()
+
     def get_vocab_size(self) -> int:
         return self.hf_text_config.vocab_size
 
@@ -336,6 +354,7 @@ def __init__(
         self.enable_prefix_caching = enable_prefix_caching
         self._verify_args()
         self._verify_cache_dtype()
+        self._verify_prefix_caching()
 
         # Will be set after profiling.
         self.num_gpu_blocks = None
@@ -364,6 +383,19 @@ def _verify_cache_dtype(self) -> None:
         else:
             raise ValueError(f"Unknown kv cache dtype: {self.cache_dtype}")
 
+    def _verify_prefix_caching(self) -> None:
+        if not self.enable_prefix_caching:
+            return
+
+        if self.sliding_window is not None:
+            raise NotImplementedError(
+                "Prefix caching is not supported with sliding window. "
+                "Run with --disable-sliding-window to use prefix caching.")
+        if self.cache_dtype == "fp8":
+            raise NotImplementedError(
+                "Prefix caching is not supported for fp8 cache_dtype. "
+                "Run with --kv-cache-dtype auto to use prefix caching.")
+
     def verify_with_parallel_config(
         self,
         parallel_config: "ParallelConfig",
@@ -1116,6 +1148,8 @@ def _get_and_verify_dtype(
 def _get_and_verify_max_len(
     hf_config: PretrainedConfig,
     max_model_len: Optional[int],
+    disable_sliding_window: bool,
+    sliding_window_len: Optional[int],
 ) -> int:
     """Get and verify the model's maximum length."""
     derived_max_model_len = float("inf")
@@ -1135,6 +1169,7 @@ def _get_and_verify_max_len(
         "max_seq_length",
         "seq_len",
     ]
+    # Choose the smallest "max_length" from the possible keys.
     max_len_key = None
     for key in possible_keys:
         max_len = getattr(hf_config, key, None)
@@ -1142,6 +1177,16 @@ def _get_and_verify_max_len(
             max_len_key = key if max_len < derived_max_model_len \
                 else max_len_key
             derived_max_model_len = min(derived_max_model_len, max_len)
+
+    # If sliding window is manually disabled, max_length should be less
+    # than the sliding window length in the model config.
+    if disable_sliding_window and sliding_window_len is not None:
+        max_len_key = "sliding_window" \
+            if sliding_window_len < derived_max_model_len else max_len_key
+        derived_max_model_len = min(derived_max_model_len, sliding_window_len)
+
+    # If none of the keys were found in the config, use a default and
+    # log a warning.
     if derived_max_model_len == float("inf"):
         if max_model_len is not None:
             # If max_model_len is specified, we use it.
@@ -1157,6 +1202,13 @@ def _get_and_verify_max_len(
 
     rope_scaling = getattr(hf_config, "rope_scaling", None)
     if rope_scaling is not None and rope_scaling["type"] != "su":
+        if disable_sliding_window:
+            # TODO(robertgshaw): Find a model that supports rope_scaling
+            # with sliding window to see if this case should be allowed.
+            raise NotImplementedError(
+                "Disabling sliding window is not supported for models "
+                "with rope_scaling. Please raise an issue so we can "
+                "investigate.")
         assert "factor" in rope_scaling
         scaling_factor = rope_scaling["factor"]
         if rope_scaling["type"] == "yarn":
@@ -1164,6 +1216,8 @@ def _get_and_verify_max_len(
                 "original_max_position_embeddings"]
         derived_max_model_len *= scaling_factor
 
+    # If the user specified a max length, make sure it is smaller than the
+    # derived length from the HF model config.
     if max_model_len is None:
         max_model_len = int(derived_max_model_len)
     elif max_model_len > derived_max_model_len:
@@ -1172,6 +1226,13 @@ def _get_and_verify_max_len(
         # with model_max_length and allow this override when it's smaller.
         model_max_length = getattr(hf_config, "model_max_length", None)
         if model_max_length is not None and max_model_len <= model_max_length:
+            if disable_sliding_window:
+                # TODO(robertgshaw): Find a model that has model_max_length
+                # with sliding window to see if this case should be allowed.
+                raise NotImplementedError(
+                    "Disabling sliding window is not supported for models "
+                    "model_max_length in the config. Please raise an issue "
+                    "so we can investigate.")
             pass
         else:
             raise ValueError(
diff --git a/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py b/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py
index 538e3427e37fb..3267c8c9f44d2 100644
--- a/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py
+++ b/vllm/engine/arg_utils.py
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@ class EngineArgs:
     max_parallel_loading_workers: Optional[int] = None
     block_size: int = 16
     enable_prefix_caching: bool = False
+    disable_sliding_window: bool = False
     use_v2_block_manager: bool = False
     swap_space: int = 4  # GiB
     gpu_memory_utilization: float = 0.90
@@ -267,6 +268,10 @@ def add_cli_args(
         parser.add_argument('--enable-prefix-caching',
                             action='store_true',
                             help='Enables automatic prefix caching.')
+        parser.add_argument('--disable-sliding-window',
+                            action='store_true',
+                            help='Disables sliding window, '
+                            'capping to sliding window size')
         parser.add_argument('--use-v2-block-manager',
                             action='store_true',
                             help='Use BlockSpaceMangerV2.')
@@ -558,8 +563,8 @@ def create_engine_config(self, ) -> EngineConfig:
             self.max_model_len, self.quantization,
             self.quantization_param_path, self.enforce_eager,
             self.max_context_len_to_capture, self.max_seq_len_to_capture,
-            self.max_logprobs, self.skip_tokenizer_init,
-            self.served_model_name)
+            self.max_logprobs, self.disable_sliding_window,
+            self.skip_tokenizer_init, self.served_model_name)
         cache_config = CacheConfig(self.block_size,
                                    self.gpu_memory_utilization,
                                    self.swap_space, self.kv_cache_dtype,
@@ -645,7 +650,8 @@ def create_engine_config(self, ) -> EngineConfig:
         if (model_config.get_sliding_window() is not None
                 and scheduler_config.chunked_prefill_enabled):
             raise ValueError(
-                "Chunked prefill is not supported with sliding window.")
+                "Chunked prefill is not supported with sliding window. "
+                "Set --disable-sliding-window to disable sliding window.")
 
         return EngineConfig(model_config=model_config,
                             cache_config=cache_config,
diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/llama.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/llama.py
index f43a40a0bfd34..c35f8cee4db23 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/llama.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/llama.py
@@ -93,7 +93,6 @@ def __init__(
         max_position_embeddings: int = 8192,
         quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
         bias: bool = False,
-        sliding_window: Optional[int] = None,
         cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
     ) -> None:
         super().__init__()
@@ -145,7 +144,6 @@ def __init__(
                               self.head_dim,
                               self.scaling,
                               num_kv_heads=self.num_kv_heads,
-                              sliding_window=sliding_window,
                               cache_config=cache_config,
                               quant_config=quant_config)
 
@@ -182,7 +180,6 @@ def __init__(
                 config.original_max_position_embeddings)
         max_position_embeddings = getattr(config, "max_position_embeddings",
                                           8192)
-        sliding_window = getattr(config, "sliding_window", None)
         # Support abacusai/Smaug-72B-v0.1 with attention_bias
         # Support internlm/internlm-7b with bias
         attention_bias = getattr(config, "attention_bias", False) or getattr(
@@ -197,7 +194,6 @@ def __init__(
             max_position_embeddings=max_position_embeddings,
             quant_config=quant_config,
             bias=attention_bias,
-            sliding_window=sliding_window,
             cache_config=cache_config,
         )
         self.mlp = LlamaMLP(
diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral.py
index ea95cf7380d54..d6dd7fa1fe9e2 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral.py
@@ -246,15 +246,16 @@ def forward(self, hidden_states: torch.Tensor) -> torch.Tensor:
 
 class MixtralAttention(nn.Module):
 
-    def __init__(self,
-                 hidden_size: int,
-                 num_heads: int,
-                 num_kv_heads: int,
-                 max_position: int = 4096 * 32,
-                 rope_theta: float = 10000,
-                 cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
-                 quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
-                 sliding_window: Optional[int] = None) -> None:
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        hidden_size: int,
+        num_heads: int,
+        num_kv_heads: int,
+        max_position: int = 4096 * 32,
+        rope_theta: float = 10000,
+        cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
+        quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
+    ) -> None:
         super().__init__()
         self.hidden_size = hidden_size
         tp_size = get_tensor_model_parallel_world_size()
@@ -276,7 +277,6 @@ def __init__(self,
         self.kv_size = self.num_kv_heads * self.head_dim
         self.scaling = self.head_dim**-0.5
         self.rope_theta = rope_theta
-        self.sliding_window = sliding_window
 
         if isinstance(
                 quant_config,
@@ -312,7 +312,6 @@ def __init__(self,
                               self.head_dim,
                               self.scaling,
                               num_kv_heads=self.num_kv_heads,
-                              sliding_window=self.sliding_window,
                               cache_config=cache_config,
                               quant_config=quant_config)
 
@@ -349,7 +348,6 @@ def __init__(
             max_position=config.max_position_embeddings,
             num_kv_heads=config.num_key_value_heads,
             rope_theta=rope_theta,
-            sliding_window=config.sliding_window,
             cache_config=cache_config,
             quant_config=quant_config)
         self.block_sparse_moe = MixtralMoE(
diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral_quant.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral_quant.py
index 9b99ff729aadd..1894c05e167d6 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral_quant.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/mixtral_quant.py
@@ -166,7 +166,6 @@ def __init__(
         max_position: int = 4096 * 32,
         rope_theta: float = 10000,
         quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
-        sliding_window: Optional[int] = None,
         cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
     ) -> None:
         super().__init__()
@@ -190,7 +189,6 @@ def __init__(
         self.kv_size = self.num_kv_heads * self.head_dim
         self.scaling = self.head_dim**-0.5
         self.rope_theta = rope_theta
-        self.sliding_window = sliding_window
 
         self.qkv_proj = QKVParallelLinear(
             hidden_size,
@@ -217,7 +215,6 @@ def __init__(
                               self.head_dim,
                               self.scaling,
                               num_kv_heads=self.num_kv_heads,
-                              sliding_window=self.sliding_window,
                               cache_config=cache_config,
                               quant_config=quant_config)
 
@@ -254,7 +251,6 @@ def __init__(
             max_position=config.max_position_embeddings,
             num_kv_heads=config.num_key_value_heads,
             rope_theta=rope_theta,
-            sliding_window=config.sliding_window,
             cache_config=cache_config,
             quant_config=quant_config)
         self.block_sparse_moe = MixtralMoE(config=config,
diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/qwen2.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/qwen2.py
index ec203c3b9001a..9a4829a27873e 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/qwen2.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/qwen2.py
@@ -86,10 +86,8 @@ def __init__(self,
                  num_kv_heads: int,
                  max_position: int = 4096 * 32,
                  rope_theta: float = 10000,
-                 use_sliding_window: bool = False,
                  cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
                  quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
-                 sliding_window: Optional[int] = None,
                  rope_scaling: Optional[Tuple] = None) -> None:
         super().__init__()
         self.hidden_size = hidden_size
@@ -112,7 +110,6 @@ def __init__(self,
         self.kv_size = self.num_kv_heads * self.head_dim
         self.scaling = self.head_dim**-0.5
         self.rope_theta = rope_theta
-        self.sliding_window = sliding_window if use_sliding_window else None
 
         self.qkv_proj = QKVParallelLinear(
             hidden_size,
@@ -140,7 +137,6 @@ def __init__(self,
                               self.head_dim,
                               self.scaling,
                               num_kv_heads=self.num_kv_heads,
-                              sliding_window=self.sliding_window,
                               cache_config=cache_config,
                               quant_config=quant_config)
 
@@ -164,7 +160,6 @@ class Qwen2DecoderLayer(nn.Module):
     def __init__(
         self,
         config: Qwen2Config,
-        layer_idx: int,
         cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
         quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
     ) -> None:
@@ -173,18 +168,14 @@ def __init__(
         # Requires transformers > 4.32.0
         rope_theta = getattr(config, "rope_theta", 1000000)
         rope_scaling = getattr(config, "rope_scaling", None)
-        use_sliding_window = (config.use_sliding_window
-                              and layer_idx < config.max_window_layers)
         self.self_attn = Qwen2Attention(
             hidden_size=self.hidden_size,
             num_heads=config.num_attention_heads,
             max_position=config.max_position_embeddings,
             num_kv_heads=config.num_key_value_heads,
             rope_theta=rope_theta,
-            use_sliding_window=use_sliding_window,
             cache_config=cache_config,
             quant_config=quant_config,
-            sliding_window=config.sliding_window,
             rope_scaling=rope_scaling)
         self.mlp = Qwen2MLP(
             hidden_size=self.hidden_size,
@@ -244,8 +235,8 @@ def __init__(
             config.hidden_size,
         )
         self.layers = nn.ModuleList([
-            Qwen2DecoderLayer(config, layer_idx, cache_config, quant_config)
-            for layer_idx in range(config.num_hidden_layers)
+            Qwen2DecoderLayer(config, cache_config, quant_config)
+            for _ in range(config.num_hidden_layers)
         ])
         self.norm = RMSNorm(config.hidden_size, eps=config.rms_norm_eps)
 
@@ -302,6 +293,18 @@ def __init__(
         lora_config: Optional[LoRAConfig] = None,
     ) -> None:
         del lora_config
+        # TODO (@robertgshaw2): see if this can be moved out
+        if (cache_config.sliding_window is not None
+                and hasattr(config, "max_window_layers")):
+            raise ValueError("Sliding window for some but all layers is not "
+                             "supported. This model uses sliding window "
+                             "but `max_window_layers` = %s is less than "
+                             "`num_hidden_layers` = %s. Please open an issue "
+                             "to discuss this feature." % (
+                                 config.max_window_layers,
+                                 config.num_hidden_layers,
+                             ))
+
         super().__init__()
         self.config = config
         self.quant_config = quant_config
diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/starcoder2.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/starcoder2.py
index 91ffd0861c39d..4324bf50d4ad1 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/starcoder2.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/starcoder2.py
@@ -74,7 +74,6 @@ def __init__(self,
         self.rope_theta = config.rope_theta
         self.max_position_embeddings = config.max_position_embeddings
         self.use_bias = config.use_bias
-        self.sliding_window = config.sliding_window
 
         self.qkv_proj = QKVParallelLinear(
             self.hidden_size,
@@ -101,7 +100,6 @@ def __init__(self,
                               self.head_dim,
                               self.scaling,
                               num_kv_heads=self.num_kv_heads,
-                              sliding_window=self.sliding_window,
                               cache_config=cache_config,
                               quant_config=quant_config)
 
diff --git a/vllm/model_executor/models/xverse.py b/vllm/model_executor/models/xverse.py
index dda13d83f89a3..1e5280dde3ff9 100644
--- a/vllm/model_executor/models/xverse.py
+++ b/vllm/model_executor/models/xverse.py
@@ -88,7 +88,6 @@ def __init__(
         max_position_embeddings: int = 8192,
         quant_config: Optional[QuantizationConfig] = None,
         bias: bool = False,
-        sliding_window: Optional[int] = None,
         cache_config: Optional[CacheConfig] = None,
     ) -> None:
         super().__init__()
@@ -134,7 +133,6 @@ def __init__(
                               self.head_dim,
                               self.scaling,
                               num_kv_heads=self.num_kv_heads,
-                              sliding_window=sliding_window,
                               cache_config=cache_config,
                               quant_config=quant_config)
 
@@ -167,7 +165,6 @@ def __init__(
         rope_scaling = getattr(config, "rope_scaling", None)
         max_position_embeddings = getattr(config, "max_position_embeddings",
                                           8192)
-        sliding_window = getattr(config, "sliding_window", None)
         self.self_attn = XverseAttention(
             hidden_size=self.hidden_size,
             num_heads=config.num_attention_heads,
@@ -178,7 +175,6 @@ def __init__(
             max_position_embeddings=max_position_embeddings,
             quant_config=quant_config,
             bias=getattr(config, "bias", False),
-            sliding_window=sliding_window,
             cache_config=cache_config,
         )
         self.mlp = XverseMLP(