Linux arm64 hosted runners now available for free in public repositories (Public Preview) 🎉

[samus-aran]

Now in public preview, Linux arm64 hosted runners are available for free in public repositories. Following the release of arm64 larger hosted runners in June, this offering now extends to the open source-community. ❤️

Powered by the Cobalt 100-based processors, these 4 vCPU runners can deliver up to a 40% performance boost compared to Microsoft Azure's previous generation of Arm-based VMs, providing a power-efficient compute layer for your workloads. Arm-native developers can now build, test and deploy entirely within the arm64 architecture without the need for virtualization on your Actions runs.

How to use the runners

To leverage the arm64 hosted runners, add the following labels in your public repository workflow runs:

• ubuntu-24.04-arm
• ubuntu-22.04-arm

Important

Please note that these labels will not work in private repositories, and the workflow will fail if added.

All runs in public repositories will adhere to our standard runners usage limits, with maximum concurrencies based on your plan type. While the arm64 runners are in public preview, you may experience longer queue times during peak usage hours.

Images

In partnership with Arm, GitHub provides the Ubuntu VM images for these runners, helping customers with a seamless start to building on Arm. To view the list of installed software, give feedback, or report issues with the image, visit the partner-runner-images repository.

Get started today!

To get started, simply add one of the new labels to the runs-on syntax in your public Actions workflow file. For more information on arm64 runners and how to use them, see our documentation.

Share below what open source projects you maintain and how using GitHub Linux arm64 hosted runners will benefit you! Let us know how much speed performance they improve 🏎️ 🏎️

Read GitHub changelog

[bjorn3]

I tried using this in https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_cranelift/actions/runs/12814835730/job/35732202343, but it seems that the cargo binary is not marked as executable.

[CodeDoctorDE]

Hello, i have the same issue that the directory permissions are wrong, see https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/148648#discussioncomment-11858098

[danielg25]

Have you tried adjusting the permissions manually within your workflow to mark the cargo binary as executable, or would you like guidance on how to resolve this issue using a script or a GitHub Actions step?

[CodeDoctorDE]

I tested it a bit, but it looks like it uses the wrong permissions:

warning: unable to access '/home/runneradmin/.config/git/ignore': Permission denied
warning: unable to access '/home/runneradmin/.config/git/attributes': Permission denied
warning: unable to access '/home/runneradmin/.config/git/config': Permission denied
warning: unable to access '/home/runneradmin/.config/git/attributes': Permission denied
warning: unable to access '/home/runneradmin/.config/git/ignore': Permission denied
warning: unable to access '/home/runneradmin/.config/git/attributes': Permission denied
warning: unable to access '/home/runneradmin/.config/git/ignore': Permission denied

This is the error why it fails:

Error: Flutter failed to create a directory at "/home/runneradmin/.config".

this is my github action: https://github.com/LinwoodDev/Butterfly/blob/7cb574ed18fea6f8aa825069dcd8955cae99d1e7/.github/workflows/build.yml

https://github.com/LinwoodDev/Butterfly/actions/runs/12815058129/job/35732903060?pr=787

[lkfortuna]

hi @CodeDoctorDE thanks for bringing this to our attention! We are working on a fix for this ASAP.

[balupton]

Yeah, permissions are messed up:

Run # workarounds for arm runners
  # workarounds for arm runners
  sudo mkdir -p "$HOME"
  sudo chown -R "$USER" "$HOME"
  shell: /usr/bin/bash -e {0}
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ***
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/runneradmin’: Permission denied

Sudo shouldn't even be necessary here, but even sudo fails.

[Rhys-T]

The permissions are actually right - the environment variables are just pointing at the wrong directories (see actions/partner-runner-images#25, actions/partner-runner-images#27).

If you need a temporary workaround for now, this is what I'm using. It's based off of actions/partner-runner-images#25 (comment), but adapted to fix both of the affected variables.

# Insert this at the beginning of the `steps` array:
    - name: Fix environment for ARM64 Linux runners (actions/partner-runner-images#25)
      run: for var in PATH XDG_CONFIG_HOME; do sed -Ee "s/^/${var}=/" -e 's/(runner)admin/\1/g' <<< "${!var}"; done | tee -a "$GITHUB_ENV"

Edit: $HOME actually seems to be right on mine, but if it's giving you problems too, you can just add it to the for loop.

[nazar-pc]

Seems to be fixed, my latest build proceeded past that error now

[cdce8p]

Is there a plan to add a ubuntu-arm-latest tag similar to ubuntu-latest?

[lkfortuna]

there is no plan to add that at this time.

[Josefina07]

Is there a plan to add an ubuntu-arm-latest tag similar to ubuntu-latest?

[darthmaim]

The new runners don't report that they are ARM and have incorrect links in the "Set up job" step:

The "Runner Image" should report ubuntu-24.04-arm and the included software should link to https://github.com/actions/partner-runner-images/blob/main/images/arm-ubuntu-24-image.md

[lkfortuna]

Hey @darthmaim! We are aware of this issue and are working on a fix for it. Thanks for reporting!

[FoxxMD]

I'm puzzled about my perceived lack of performance gains using the new runners...

For my project building a multi-platform docker image using GHA with QEMU/buildx/build-push-action on a normal runner has always taken a long time (11-13min) -- and the majority of that time was spent on the arm emulation part of the build. The x86 part takes ~1:30 while arm finishes in 9-10 minutes. I've always expected this would be the case due to the emulation.

But now I've tried the new runner using a GHA where a matrix builds my image on separate runners, arm/x86 native without QEMU, and the difference in build time is only about 8% faster. I'm scratching my head about why this isn't improved more. For an absolute comparison, the project builds the same docker image (for arm platform only) on my Raspberry Pi 5 in 1:40 and 1:50 on my RPI4b (compared to 8:37 on ubuntu-22.04-arm).

Is this expected? Are the new runners this anemic in terms of performance?

EDIT: AS @darthmaim mentions below the solution is to use runs-on: {{ matrix.os }} as well as configuring the matrix to use the correct image/arch/os. Build times are now down to 2min. The working workflow here

[darthmaim]

You have to change your runs-on: ubuntu-latest to runs-on: {{ matrix.os }}.

I have a similar workflow that went from ~14 minutes using QEMU to ~2 minutes using the ARM runner.

[nightlark]

I'm seeing a similar (or better?) performance improvement. I have a Docker image build for arm64 that was taking at 3.5 hours with QEMU, and after switching to the native arm64 runners it finished in 16 minutes.

[raffadh28]

Are there any ways to further improve the build time with the new runners?

[nightlark]

Are there any ways to further improve the build time with the new runners?

The build times I’ve seen so far are the same or slightly faster than the same build on the amd64 Linux runners. What are you looking for? Could always pay for a larger runner instance with more cores if your build/tests can take advantage of the increased parallelism.

[FoxxMD]

Thank you @darthmaim that did the trick. Down to 2 minutes for execution on the arm build now 👍

[kjxbyz]

See https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/149347

[lkfortuna]

hey @kjxbyz - we are aware of the issue and are in process of rolling out a fix

[kjxbyz]

If the issue is fixed, please reply in this discussion. Thank you!

[Athou]

The ubuntu-24.04-arm runner seems to miss the libgbm1 package:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Host system is missing dependencies to run browsers.                                                 ║
║ Please install them with the following command:                                                      ║
║                                                                                                      ║
║     sudo mvn exec:java -e -D exec.mainClass=com.microsoft.playwright.CLI -D exec.args="install-deps" ║
║                                                                                                      ║
║ Alternatively, use apt:                                                                              ║
║     sudo apt-get install libgbm1                                                                     ║
║                                                                                                      ║
║ <3 Playwright Team                                                                                   ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

See https://github.com/Athou/commafeed/actions/runs/12823180867/job/35757289975

The package is installed on ubuntu-latest. I fixed this with this but it would be nice if the packages installed on both ubuntu runners were the same 😊

  - name: Install Playwright dependencies
    run: sudo apt-get install -y libgbm1
    if: matrix.os == 'ubuntu-24.04-arm'

[jacob-carlborg]

Would have been nice to have support for hardware accelerated nested virtualization (KVM). Seems it's not available:

$ sudo modprobe kvm
$ sudo /usr/sbin/kvm-ok
INFO: /dev/kvm does not exist
HINT:   sudo modprobe kvm
modprobe: FATAL: Module msr not found in directory /lib/modules/6.8.0-1017-azure
$ sudo dmesg | grep -i kvm
[    0.585208] kvm [1]: HYP mode not available

Does anyone know if there's a limitation in hardware, the virtualization layer or if it's just not configured to be enable?

[orazioedoardo]

No ubuntu-20.04-arm runner? Technically it's still supported.

EDIT: Ok, saw this as well https://github.blog/changelog/2025-01-15-github-actions-ubuntu-20-runner-image-brownout-dates-and-other-breaking-changes/

[dalcinl]

From time to time, actions/checkout@v4 is failing but I see no output, for example:
https://github.com/mpi4py/mpi4py-publish/actions/runs/12827690739/job/35770199992#step:2:1

I'm also seeing some docker instabilities when running jobs that have large matrices. Typical error messages are:

https://github.com/mpi4py/mpi4py-publish/actions/runs/12827690739/job/35770200582#step:10:398

Error response from daemon: failed to create task for container: failed to create shim task: OCI runtime create failed: runc create failed: unable to start container process: unable to apply cgroup configuration: unable to start unit "docker-8fd5c4828e7358dfa718c5dddf5f48350fc6a3e059fba62947fb8c540ddbf3fd.scope" (properties [{Name:Description Value:"libcontainer container 8fd5c4828e7358dfa718c5dddf5f48350fc6a3e059fba62947fb8c540ddbf3fd"} {Name:Slice Value:"system.slice"} {Name:Delegate Value:true} {Name:PIDs Value:@au [4710]} {Name:MemoryAccounting Value:true} {Name:CPUAccounting Value:true} {Name:IOAccounting Value:true} {Name:TasksAccounting Value:true} {Name:DefaultDependencies Value:false}]): Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms): unknown```

https://github.com/mpi4py/mpi4py-publish/actions/runs/12827690739/job/35770199123#step:10:287

+ docker version -f '{{json .}}'
  Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

[pllim]

Hello. I ran into permission problem using this new runner with tox. This same workflow was using paid linux-arm64 before and did not have such problem. Please see:

• TST: Use free Linux ARM64 runner astropy/astropy#17645

[nazar-pc]

Should have been called -arm64 or -aarch64

[eregon]

Agreed, it's odd to have macos-14-arm64 but ubuntu-24.04-arm.
Also Node.js os.arch() is arm64, as is core.platform.arch.

[nazar-pc]

uname -p is aarch64, so are many Linux packages and other things, but arm is the worst possible option, it is inconsistent with basically everything

[mhemani-reach]

Are there plans for a ubuntu-latest-arm label?
Are there plans to allow free usage in private repos (especially for Enterprise Cloud)?

[dennisameling]

Ran into this error while testing the new ubuntu-22.04-arm runners:

JavaScript Actions in Alpine containers are only supported on x64 Linux runners. Detected Linux Arm64

Looks like there's an open issue for this since 2020. Any chance this could be prioritized? Thanks!

[userdocs]

Until you can run commands on the host before the container is set up the system is crippled anyway.

You have always been able to call a docker image on demand from the runner and not use container:

https://github.com/userdocs/test/actions/runs/12828579208/workflow

As you can see build-3 does not fail, which is why I don't have this issue.