1. Creating a Hardware Entry on C3

You can run certification tests without submitting them to C3; however, if you want to certify the system, you need a C3 account. If you do not have an account for your company on the private certification web site, or if you do not have access to your company’s account, please contact your Partner Engineer, who will work with the Server Certification Team to establish the account.

Additionally, anyone who needs to access the account on C3 will need their own account on launchpad.net, and their Launchpad account will need to be added to the Access Control List for the company account. You can create a Launchpad account at http://launchpad.net/+login. If, after the Launchpad account is created and you have been added to the ACL, you still can not see the Account Information on C3, try logging out of C3, clearing any browser cache and cookies, and logging back into C3.

In order to upload test results to C3, you need to create a hardware entry for the machine which you will be certifying; however, creating a new entry is not always necessary. You should create an entry if:

  • A C3 entry for that specific machine (model and configuration) does not already exist; and

  • You plan to submit certification data for that machine.

You should not create a new entry if:

  • C3 already hosts an entry for that specific machine; instead, use the existing entry, even if it has existing submissions associated with it (say, for an earlier version of Ubuntu); or

  • You don’t plan to submit certification data for this computer.

You can put off creating the C3 entry until after the test, although doing it before testing is usually preferable. To create an entry you can go directly to:

https://certification.canonical.com/hardware/create-system

If you have problems accessing this site, contact your assigned Partner Engineer.

This flowchart outlines the steps necessary to create hardware entries on C3.

The process of creating an entry is outlined in the preceding flowchart.

On C3, physical machines that have the same hardware characteristics are grouped under the same configuration. A configuration is a conceptual group of physical machines that share the same hardware combination of motherboard, CPU and peripheral components delivered by an OEM or ODM. Similarly, a platform is a set of configurations that share the same motherboard and BIOS ID.

When you create a new machine, you should first check if a platform and configuration already exists for that machine. If it does, use the existing configuration. Otherwise, create a new platform and/or configuration:

  1. Log in to C3 at https://certification.canonical.com.

  2. Select Admin > Account from the top menu, and check whether a platform exists for the machine you are certifying. If it does, use the existing platform, otherwise, create a new platform:

    1. Click Create platform.

    2. Enter the platform name an other details.

    3. Click Submit.

  3. On the platform page, check whether a configuration exists for the machine you are certifying. If it does, use the existing configuration, otherwise, create a new configuration:

    1. Click Create configuration.

    2. Enter the configuration name and other details.

    3. Click Submit.

  4. On the configuration page, click Create machine.

  5. Fill in the details:

    • Account – The name of your account. If the account is incorrect or can’t be set, please contact your account manager for assistance. This field is never published; it is for internal use only.

    • Configuration – The name of the configuration, which usually matches the model name. If no valid configuration exists for your hardware, please contact your account manager for assistance.

    • Canonical label – Internal identifier that will be assigned by Canonical.

    • SKU – This optional field specifies the SKU for the hardware.

    • Web site – This optional field links to the system information on the manufacturer’s web site. This field is not currently published publicly.

    • Comment – This optional field holds any comment you want to make about the hardware, including things like tester name, test location, etc. These comments are never made public, they are for internal use only.

    • Architecture – The CPU architecture of the SUT. This is used internally and is not published.

    • Confidential – Defaults to False (unchecked). Check the box if the system has not been publicly announced yet or should remain unpublished for any reason. This will cause the entire entry to not be published to the public web site.

  6. Click Submit.

  7. Note the “Secure ID for testing purposes” value. You’ll need this when submitting the test results. (Note that this value is unique for each machine.)