---
title: Charmhub | Deploy GitHub runner using Charmhub - The Open Operator Collection
description: Deploy the latest version of GitHub runner on any cloud.
url: https://charmhub.io/github-runner/docs/local-lxd-explanation-arm64
---

# GitHub runner

[Canonical IS DevOps](https://charmhub.io/publisher/canonical-is-devops "View all packages from Canonical IS DevOps")

* [Canonical IS DevOps](https://charmhub.io/publisher/canonical-is-devops "View all packages from Canonical IS DevOps")

Platform:

24.04

22.04

20.04

stable 24801f1f

```
juju deploy github-runner
```

[Learn to deploy on juju >](https://juju.is/docs/juju/manage-applications)

---

#### Contacts

##### Maintainers

+ [Launchpad Team](https://launchpad.net/~canonical-is-devops)

* [Submit a bug](https://github.com/canonical/github-runner-operator/issues)

---

Share your thoughts on this charm with the community on discourse.

[Join the discussion](https://discourse.charmhub.io/)

# ARM64

For ARM64, the charm needs to be deployed on a bare metal instance. This is due to the fact that the

GitHub runner uses [LXD](https://github.com/canonical/lxd) to create a virtual machine to run the
GitHub runner’s binary. Some versions of the ARM64 architecture do not support nested
virtualizations.

Furthermore LXD by default uses QEMU with KVM acceleration options and such behaviour cannot
be overridden. When run on a machine without KVM support,
the following error will occur:

```
Error: Failed instance creation: Failed creating instance record: Instance type "virtual-machine"
is not supported on this server: KVM support is missing (no /dev/kvm)
```

The kernel for nested virtualizations have not yet landed upstream.

The current progress of ARM64 nested virtualization support requires a few underlying technologies
to be further developed.

* [Hardware: supported](https://developer.arm.com/documentation/102142/0100/Nested-virtualization)
* Kernel (KVM): upstream not yet ready
* User space programs (e.g. qemu): unsupported.

Therefore, it is currently necessary that the charm is deployed on a bare metal instance.
For instance, you can use any of the [ARM64 metal instances](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/) to provide Juju
with ARM64 bare metal instances. Some of the examples include: a1.metal, m7g.metal.

---