What Is Testrarc? The Beginner's Guide to Rocky Linux's Open Release Testing Platform
CodexFuse Team · 2026-11-05T10:54:02.908Z · 15 min read min read
What Is Testrarc? The Beginner's Guide to Rocky Linux's Open Release Testing Platform
Testrarc is Rocky Linux's public dashboard for tracking release testing, and this guide answers the question what is Testrarc in plain terms. Rocky Linux announced it on November 4, 2026, one day before this guide was written. It turns the testing of a new Rocky release into a page anyone can read, from the first beta build through each release candidate.
Before Testrarc, Rocky Linux release testing lived mostly inside the Rocky team's chat tools, where volunteers could follow along only if they knew where to look. Now the results sit on a public web page at testrarc.rockylinux.org, with live results for the Rocky Linux 10.3 and 9.9 betas. This guide explains what the dashboard shows, how to read it, and how to contribute a test of your own.
What Is Testrarc?
Testrarc is Rocky Linux's open-source, web-based platform for managing and monitoring the testing of Rocky releases. The name is short for TEST tRAcking for Rocky Candidates. It records every test for a release in one place, from a pre-release or beta build through each release candidate, and it shows who ran each test, what result it got, and what kind of machine it ran on.
The Testrarc Rocky Linux dashboard is the first public window into that process. Anyone can open it and see which tests have passed, which have failed, and which came back partial, without signing in. A Rocky account is needed only to submit a result, so that credit for volunteer work is recorded under the right name.
If you plan to try a beta yourself, download the ISO from Rocky's staging area and check it before you boot it. The QA docs describe verifying checksums with sha256sum, and the SHA-256 hash generator can produce the hash you need to compare. A safer place to run a beta is a disposable machine, and VPS hosting gives you a server you can rebuild in minutes if the beta misbehaves.
The announcement itself is dated November 4, 2026, and the platform went public the same week the 10.3 and 9.9 betas needed testing. That newness is part of the story: Testrarc is a tool built for the releases it is now tracking, not a dashboard added years after the fact.
Why Rocky Linux Built Testrarc
Since 2022, Rocky Linux tracked release testing with Mattermost Playbooks, the checklist tool built into its Mattermost chat. Playbooks served the team well, according to the announcement, but as testing grew the team wanted clearer transparency and better management. It looked at what other Linux distributions used, took the ideas that fit Rocky, and built a dedicated tool instead.
The difference is one of purpose. Playbooks is a general workflow tool for checklists and runbooks inside chat, so test tracking lived where only team members looked. Testrarc is a purpose-built test-result database with a public dashboard, so anyone can see the state of a release without joining a chat channel.
Transparency is the point Rocky stresses in its announcement, and it is worth reading as Rocky's own framing rather than an independent verdict. A public record also changes who can help: a volunteer no longer needs to ask where testing stands, because the dashboard answers that question first.
How Testrarc Organizes a Release: TestBooks and Release Candidates
Testrarc explained in one sentence: a TestBook holds one release, release-candidate stages divide that release into rounds, and every test result is filed under its stage, architecture, and environment.
| Level | What it holds | Example |
|---|---|---|
| TestBook | One release being evaluated | Rocky-9.7 |
| Release Candidate | A stage of that release | LookAhead, Beta, RC1, RC2, Final |
| Architecture | The processor family tested | x86_64, aarch64, riscv64, ppc64le, s390x |
| Deployment type | The environment the test ran in | Bare metal, KVM, container, VM, cloud |
| Test result | One recorded outcome | Pass, fail, or partial |
A TestBook stays open while its release is being tested, and an archived TestBook becomes read-only once the release ships. That structure is what lets a reader follow one release from its first beta to its final candidate without hunting through chat logs.
The model also keeps results comparable. The same test can be recorded on five architectures and five environment types, which gives 25 possible combinations for a single test definition. That grid is the reason a dashboard helps: a checklist in chat cannot show 25 cells at a glance.
What Every Test Result Records
Each result on Testrarc carries the same set of facts, so a pass on one machine means the same thing as a pass on another. The announcement lists the core of them: who validated the test, the result status, and the type of environment tested, on every supported architecture.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Test | The named check, for example media consistency or torrent validity |
| Status | Pass, fail, or partial |
| Validated by | The contributor who ran the test |
| Environment | Bare metal, KVM, container, VM, or cloud |
| Architecture | x86_64, aarch64, riscv64, ppc64le, or s390x |
| Comments | Notes from the tester |
| Bug link | A link to the bug report when a test fails, optional |
| Submission type | Individual or group result |
The three-way result matters. A pass means the test behaved as expected, a fail means it did not, and a partial means the test ran only partway or passed with exceptions. That third option is what separates a careful record from a blunt one, because a test that half works is a different fact from a test that never ran.
Results are also grouped. A BasicTest is a single test definition that can apply across architectures and TestBooks, and version 0.9.9 added group result submission on September 8, 2026, 57 days before the public announcement. Groups let a team record the same outcome for several machines at once instead of filing each one by hand.
Five Architectures, Five Environments: What Testrarc Covers
Rocky Linux release testing covers more hardware than a typical desktop user ever sees. Testrarc tracks five architectures for each release, and five environment types on top of that.
| Architecture | Where you meet it |
|---|---|
| x86_64 | Standard PCs and servers |
| aarch64 | ARM servers and boards |
| riscv64 | RISC-V hardware |
| ppc64le | Power servers |
| s390x | IBM mainframes |
The environment list is just as broad: physical hardware, KVM virtualization, containers, other virtual machines, and cloud infrastructure. A test that passes in a container and fails on bare metal is a different fact from a test that passes everywhere, and Testrarc keeps those two facts apart.
That breadth is why the platform matters to more than the core team. A Raspberry Pi owner, a cloud user, and a mainframe operator can each check the exact row that matches their own setup, instead of guessing from a single pass or fail.
How to Read the Rocky Linux 10.3 and 9.9 Beta Results
Rocky Linux Testrarc opened with live results for the Rocky Linux 10.3 and 9.9 betas, and reading them takes five steps. The Testrarc 10.3 results sit alongside the Testrarc 9.9 beta results on the same dashboard.
- Open the Testrarc dashboard at testrarc.rockylinux.org and pick the TestBook for the release you follow.
- Choose the release-candidate stage, starting with Beta and moving through RC1, RC2, and Final as each round appears.
- Filter by the architecture you run, from x86_64 down to s390x.
- Read each result as a triple: status, who validated it, and the environment it ran in.
- Use the community_testable filter to find tests you can run yourself without special hardware.
No sign-in is needed for any of this. The live site answers with a guest view, which is why its page title reads Guest-readonly, and every result is public. That is the transparency Rocky promised: the state of a beta is visible to anyone with a browser.
Keep one limit in mind. This guide was written on November 5, 2026, the day after the announcement, and the dashboard itself is a JavaScript web app whose individual rows change as volunteers submit results. The shape of the data is stable, but any single count you see today will be different tomorrow.
What Does community_testable Mean?
The community_testable tag is the most useful filter on Testrarc for a new volunteer. It marks a test that can be run without specialized hardware, deep domain expertise, or specialized tools, in the announcement's own words. It is the first built-in tag in the project, according to the repository readme.
That definition is doing real work. Release testing has always needed people with unusual machines, but it also needs people with ordinary ones, and the tag separates the two groups cleanly. A volunteer with a home lab or a spare virtual machine can filter to community_testable tests and start contributing on the first visit.
The tag also answers a common worry. Many people assume distro testing needs a server rack or a mainframe, and for some tests it does. The community_testable filter exists to show the tests where it does not.
How to Submit a Test Result
Viewing results is open to everyone, but submitting one needs a Rocky account. The announcement is direct about the reason: the team wants credit properly given for each volunteer contribution. An account ties a result to the person who ran it.
The practical path runs through Rocky's testing community. Beta ISOs for 9.9 and 10.3 sit in a staging area at dl.rockylinux.org/stg/rocky, under the 9.9 and 10.3 folders, and the testing channel on Rocky's Mattermost is the hub where beta discussion happens. Download a beta, verify its checksum, run the tests that match your machine, and file the result under your account.
Start with a community_testable test if you are new. Pick one that matches your architecture and environment, follow the test case in Rocky's QA documentation, and record the result honestly, including a partial result when the test only partly worked. A partial result is more useful than a guessed pass, because it tells the team exactly where the release stands.
One caution before you install anything. A beta is a pre-release build, so run it on spare hardware or a disposable virtual machine, never on a machine you depend on. The forum post that pointed to the staging area makes the same point: beta releases are not ready for general support channels.
Testrarc vs Mattermost Playbooks: What Changed
Testrarc replaces a setup Rocky used for about four years, and the change is worth spelling out. Mattermost Playbooks ran release tracking from 2022 until the Testrarc announcement in November 2026.
| Aspect | Mattermost Playbooks | Testrarc |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | General team checklists and runbooks | Tracking release test results |
| Where results live | Inside Mattermost chat | On a public web dashboard |
| Who can see results | Team members in the channel | Anyone, no login needed |
| Result detail | Checklist items in a playbook | Pass, fail, or partial, plus validator and environment |
| Credit for work | Tracked in the playbook | Tied to a Rocky account |
Nothing in the announcement says Playbooks failed. Rocky says it served the team well and that the need for clearer transparency and better management simply grew beyond what a chat checklist could show. Testrarc is a response to growth, not a fix for a breakdown.
The cutover is already written into Rocky's documentation. The QA test cases page now says that historical testing lives in the Mattermost release channels, and that for 9.9 and later releases, and 10.3 and later, readers should see Testrarc. That sentence is the cleanest sign of the handover: the docs point forward, not back.
Testrarc Under the Hood: Python, Rio, and Open Source
Testrarc is a specialized, open-source Python application built with the Rio web framework, in the announcement's words. Rio lets developers build web apps in pure Python, with no HTML, CSS, or JavaScript of their own, which is why the live site's page is a small JavaScript shell around a Python app. In this article Rio means only that Python framework, not any of the other projects that share the name.
The code is public under the MIT license, in the testing/testrarc repository on Rocky's own Git server, and it is 91 percent Python with the rest shell scripts, according to the repository page. Two developers built it: Bob Robison and Howard Van Der Wal, named in the announcement. The repository was created on April 16, 2026, which is 202 days before the November 4 announcement, so the public launch followed more than six months of development.
Access on the platform is split into four roles. Viewers can see results but cannot submit, testers can submit, admins can edit tests, and leads can set the admin password. That split is what keeps a public dashboard trustworthy: anyone can look, but only known contributors can write.
| Role | What it can do |
|---|---|
| Viewer | See results, cannot submit |
| Tester | Submit test results |
| Admin | Edit tests |
| Lead | Set the admin password |
Contributors who want to work on the code itself will find a small Python codebase, and a terminal coding agent can help a newcomer map it. If you use one, the guide to how to use Claude Code covers the setup. Teams that wire dashboards into chat usually do it with a notification hook, and the guide to what a webhook is explains that pattern in plain terms.
What Testrarc Does Not Do Yet
Testrarc is new, and the honest way to describe it is to list what it does not do yet. It has no announced stable-release dates attached to it: neither Rocky Linux 10.3 nor 9.9 has a published general-availability date, and Rocky has said it cannot guarantee dates for minor releases, which have typically arrived in May and November, according to pbxscience's reading of the announcement.
It is also pre-1.0 software at version 0.9.27, so its interface and its data model can still change. The partial result is a good example: the constraint that allows partial results was added in version 0.9.27 on the day of the announcement, so the three-way result is brand new, not a settled feature with a long history.
There is also a naming trap worth one sentence. An unrelated NetIQ command is also called testarc, and it tests event-manager configuration, which has nothing to do with Rocky Linux. The Rocky tool is Testrarc, short for TEST tRAcking for Rocky Candidates, and that expansion is the easiest way to keep the two apart.
Who Should Use Testrarc
Testrarc is for three groups of people. Rocky users who run a beta can check whether their exact setup has already been tested. Volunteers who want to help can find a community_testable test that fits their machine.
Anyone curious about how a Linux distribution ships a release can watch a beta move toward final in the open. The dashboard makes that process visible without asking anything of the reader.
It is less useful for two other groups. If you only run stable Rocky releases, the dashboard tells you nothing you need, because stable releases are already tested and shipped. And if you want a release date, Testrarc will not give you one, since neither 10.3 nor 9.9 has an announced date.
For everyone in the first group, the safest way to try a beta is in an isolated sandbox rather than on a main machine. A cloud sandbox keeps the beta away from your files, and the guide to how to use E2B explains that kind of isolated environment.
Sources
The official Rocky Linux announcement dated November 4, 2026, is the primary source for what Testrarc is, what it replaces, and how its results are recorded. Linuxiac's launch coverage from the same day matches the announcement on every checkable point, and pbxscience's write-up from the same day adds the development timeline and the pre-1.0 status.
The public repository on Rocky's Git server gives the project structure, the roles, the MIT license, and the version history, including version 0.9.27 and the group-submission feature from version 0.9.9. Rocky's QA test cases documentation describes the testing process Testrarc now records, and its cutover note points readers to Testrarc for the 9.9 and 10.3 releases.
Mattermost's own documentation describes Playbooks as a checklist and workflow tool, which is the background for the comparison in this guide. A Rocky forum post from Release Engineering dated October 7, 2026, gives the beta staging area and the testing channel. Hacks.gr provided a same-day rewrite that adds the dashboard's app entry address, and LinuxToday carried the story as an aggregator entry.
The Rio framework background comes from the Rio project's own site and developer write-ups. The live site was checked this run and returns a normal response, though its dashboard rows could not be read as plain text because the app runs in the browser as JavaScript.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Testrarc?
Testrarc is Rocky Linux's public, open-source dashboard for tracking release testing. It records every test for a release from the first beta through each release candidate, showing the result, who validated it, and the environment it ran on. It launched on November 4, 2026, with live results for the Rocky Linux 10.3 and 9.9 betas.
How do I view Rocky Linux beta test results?
Open testrarc.rockylinux.org and pick the TestBook for the release you follow. No login is needed to view results. Choose the release-candidate stage, filter by architecture, and read each result as a status, a validator, and an environment.
Do I need an account to use Testrarc?
No account is needed to view results, and no login is required to browse the dashboard. A Rocky account is needed only to submit a test result, so that credit for the work is recorded under your name.
What does community_testable mean?
It is a tag that marks a test as runnable without specialized hardware, deep domain expertise, or specialized tools. It is the first built-in tag in Testrarc, and it is the fastest way for a new volunteer to find a test they can run.
When will Rocky Linux 10.3 and 9.9 be released?
No stable-release date has been announced for either version. Rocky has said it cannot guarantee general-availability dates for minor releases, which have typically arrived in May and November. The betas are being tested now, and Testrarc is where that testing is visible.
