Install containerd on Ubuntu (Kubernetes

Here is how to install containerd on Ubuntu in 2026. Tested and verified.

Install containerd

# Install prerequisites
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg

# Add Docker repository (containerd is part of Docker packages)
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

# Install containerd only
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y containerd.io

Configure for Kubernetes

# Generate default config
sudo mkdir -p /etc/containerd
containerd config default | sudo tee /etc/containerd/config.toml

# Enable SystemdCgroup (required for Kubernetes)
sudo sed -i 's/SystemdCgroup = false/SystemdCgroup = true/' /etc/containerd/config.toml

# Restart containerd
sudo systemctl restart containerd
sudo systemctl enable containerd

Verify

sudo systemctl status containerd
sudo ctr version
sudo crictl --runtime-endpoint unix:///run/containerd/containerd.sock version

Related Resources

• containerd Cheat Sheet
• crictl Cheat Sheet
• containerd vs CRI-O