AlmaLinux Wiki

# Contribute a Certification

This guide is for anyone who wants to certify hardware or confirm software on AlmaLinux. You do not need to be a vendor, you do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to schedule anything with us. If you have a machine and about ten minutes, you can add a listing to the AlmaLinux Catalog (opens new window).

If you are a hardware or software vendor looking for an official vendor validated listing, or you are certifying at scale, start with the certification program document (opens new window) instead. This guide covers the individual, community validated path.

# What you need

  • A machine running AlmaLinux 8, 9, or 10 on x86_64 or aarch64. You can also boot our live media (opens new window) instead of installing anything, which means you can certify a machine that is already doing a job and put it straight back to work.
  • Root on the machine under test.
  • A free AlmaLinux Account (opens new window) if you want to publish your results. Running the suite does not need one.

# Certify hardware

# 1. Install the suite

The certification suite is packaged as alma-certify in the extras repository (opens new window), which is enabled by default.

sudo dnf install alma-certify

# 2. Run it

If you are not sure what to run, run the command with no arguments and it will walk you through the options, build the command your answers add up to, and run it.

alma-certify

If you would rather go straight to it, the certification tests are:

sudo alma-certify validate

Alternatively, if you'd like to also include benchmarks in the run:

sudo alma-certify run

Most machines finish in under ten minutes, and you are not doing anything for most of that.

# 3. Authorize the machine

The first time you run validate, benchmark, or run, the suite prints a QR code, URL and a short code. You can scan the QR code on a phone, tablet, etc. and log in on that device to approve the run if this is more convenient than pasting the code into a browser URL.

To authorize this machine (sut-42.lab), open:
    https://catalog.almalinux.org/my/activate/
and enter the code:  BQXK-PMTH

Open that on your phone or another computer, sign in, and enter the code. No password or token is ever typed on the machine being tested. If you would rather authorize the machine before you start, run alma-certify register first.

# 4. Finish the listing

Results upload on their own when the run completes. Your submission then waits for you to add the things the suite cannot know: the marketing name of the machine, a short description, and a link to the spec sheet. You add those in the catalog, and a reviewer publishes the listing from there.

Every submission goes through review before it appears, whether it comes from a community member, a vendor, or from us.

# Confirm software

Software works differently, because there is no suite to run against an application. Confirming software is entirely a web task and takes about a minute.

  1. Sign in to catalog.almalinux.org (opens new window).
  2. Find the product you use.
  3. Confirm that it works on the AlmaLinux release you are actually running.

Confirmations are counted one per person per release, so every person who confirms adds weight to the listing. If you are running a product on a release its publisher has not cited yet, you can report that too, and it appears on the listing once a reviewer accepts it.

This is the fastest way to help. If you rely on something every day and it works, say so.

# Going further

Benchmarks do not run by default and are completely optional. They take considerably longer than a certification run, generally being closer to the 30-minute mark, and their results feed the public leaderboards in the catalog.

sudo alma-certify benchmark

To do everything in one pass, use sudo alma-certify run, which performs the inventory, the certification tests, and the benchmarks together.

Interactive tests cover the things that need a person at the machine, such as USB hotplug, suspend and resume, and surviving a reboot. They only run when you ask for them.

sudo alma-certify validate --interactive

Keeping results to yourself is fine. Pass --no-submit and nothing is uploaded.

sudo alma-certify validate --no-submit

Machines with no network access can still be certified. Bundle the run and upload the archive by hand at catalog.almalinux.org/results/upload/ (opens new window).

alma-certify bundle <run-id>

# Command reference

Command What it does
alma-certify Guided walkthrough of the common tasks
alma-certify list Shows what would run on this machine
sudo alma-certify collect Hardware inventory: CPUs, memory, disks, network cards, GPUs, firmware, drivers
sudo alma-certify validate The certification tests
sudo alma-certify benchmark Performance measurements for the leaderboards
sudo alma-certify run Collect, validate, and benchmark together
alma-certify runs Lists previous runs and their status
alma-certify report <run-id> Shows the results of a run
alma-certify resume <run-id> Continues an interrupted run
alma-certify bundle <run-id> Produces a shareable archive
sudo alma-certify submit <run-id> Uploads a run by hand
alma-certify register Authorizes the machine ahead of a run

# A few things worth knowing

The suite runs anywhere, but it can only certify AlmaLinux. A run on another distribution warns you and continues if you say so, and you keep the results, but it cannot be submitted as a certification.

A virtual machine cannot certify a whole machine, because the firmware, storage controller, and network devices belong to the hypervisor. A GPU passed through to a guest is the real device, so a GPU-scoped run submits normally.

Certification is per major version. Hardware certified for AlmaLinux 9 does not need recertifying until AlmaLinux 10. Because a run takes minutes now, re-confirming existing listings on newer releases is genuinely useful and always welcome.

Certification here is a statement about compatibility. It says AlmaLinux runs correctly on this hardware, or this software runs correctly on AlmaLinux. It is not a regulatory or security certification.

# Getting help

If a run fails in a way you do not understand, or you want to talk through certifying something unusual, come to the SIG. We would rather hear about it than have you give up on it.

Last Updated: 2026-09-23

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