Finch on Arm Linux

Finch is an open-source container development tool from Amazon Web Services (AWS). It offers a simple, Docker-compatible CLI powered by containerd and nerdctl. Designed for Linux, macOS, and Windows, Finch is especially useful on Arm-based systems for efficient container workflows.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to install Finch on Arm Linux distributions, specifically Amazon Linux 2023 and Ubuntu 24.04.

Before you begin

Make sure you’re using a system running Arm Linux. You can use a physical Arm device, a cloud instance from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), or an Arm-based virtual machine.

To confirm the architecture, run:

    

        
        
uname -m

    

The output should be aarch64 for 64-bit Arm systems.

Install Finch on Amazon Linux 2023 for Arm

Finch is available as an RPM package in the standard Amazon Linux 2023 repositories, making installation simple.

Install Finch using the package manager:

    

        
        
sudo yum install runfinch-finch -y

    

Enable and start the containerd service:

    

        
        
sudo systemctl start containerd

    

Check that the containerd service is running:

    

        
        
sudo systemctl status containerd

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        ● containerd.service - containerd container runtime
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/containerd.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2025-05-21 19:49:50 UTC; 40s ago
       Docs: https://containerd.io
    Process: 25839 ExecStartPre=/sbin/modprobe overlay (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 25841 (containerd)
      Tasks: 10
     Memory: 160.5M
        CPU: 1.771s
     CGroup: /system.slice/containerd.service
             └─25841 /usr/bin/containerd

        
    

The finch command is now available in your PATH. You can now skip to the section on verifying the Finch installation .

Install Finch on Ubuntu 24.04 for Arm

Finch doesn’t currently provide a Debian package for Ubuntu, but you can install it manually using the following three steps.

Install Finch dependencies

Install Nerdctl by following the instructions in the Nerdctl install guide . Then, install the required tools:

    

        
        
sudo apt install -y \
  golang \
  make \
  build-essential

    

Build and install Finch

Clone the Finch repository and build the binary:

    

        
        
git clone https://github.com/runfinch/finch.git
cd finch
git submodule update --init --recursive
make
sudo make install

    

Configure Finch

Create the Finch configuration directories:

    

        
        
sudo mkdir -p /etc/finch
sudo mkdir -p /usr/libexec/finch

    

Create the Finch configuration file:

    

        
        
cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/finch/finch.yaml > /dev/null
# cpus: the amount of vCPU to dedicate to the virtual machine. (required)
cpus: 2

# memory: the amount of memory to dedicate to the virtual machine. (required)
memory: 2GiB

# snapshotters: the snapshotters a user wants to use (the first snapshotter will be set as the default snapshotter)
snapshotters: 
    - overlayfs

# dockercompat: a configuration parameter to activate finch functionality to accept Docker-like commands and arguments.
dockercompat: true
EOF

    

Configure Nerdctl:

    

        
        
sudo ln -sf $(which nerdctl) /usr/libexec/finch/nerdctl

    

After these steps, the finch command is available in your PATH.

Verify the Finch installation

You can check the Finch version:

    

        
        
sudo finch --version

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        finch version v1.8.2

        
    

Run a container to confirm functionality:

    

        
        
sudo finch run --rm armswdev/uname

    

If you see the architecture printed, Finch is working correctly.

The output should be:

    

        
        Architecture is aarch64

        
    

Print your local container images:

    

        
        
sudo finch images

    

The output is similar to:

    

        
        REPOSITORY        TAG       IMAGE ID        CREATED           PLATFORM       SIZE       BLOB SIZE
armswdev/uname    latest    82762f30a4a3    43 seconds ago    linux/arm64    110.4MB    28.89MB

        
    

Use sudo finch help to explore available commands.

You are now ready to use Finch to run containers on your Arm Linux system.