Hello there,
Should we request for tracks and confinement even for private snap ? (sorry if it’s not in the correct place)
We need to have a track called classicmode and classic confinement for this track for experimenting with classic confinement.
The reason why is that we need to experiment with license dongle providing physical security to access to the snap package that are not possible for now in strict confinement.
All the best,
Hi! This is the right place to ask but I would be -1 to granting a track for experimental purposes and on a private snap ; I would suggest you register two dummy snap names so you can experiment (one for strict, the other maybe for classic - but note you’re also unlikely to be granted classic confinement for a private experimental snap).
Even with a classic mode track, the snap will not automatically switch between strict and classic, the user has to explicitly refresh —classic to get the classic one. So the classic mode track mechanism is only useful in specific situations.
Oh sure, a specific track would involve juggling constantly with the yaml file for testing and could compromise the other track, got you !
So if I understood well your advise is to create a second snap for experimenting with some dummy code and to make it public ?
All the best,
Just making the snap public is no guarantee that it’ll be granted classic, unfortunately; I’m saying that a private experimental snap has zero chance of being granted classic, not that a public experimental snap has a 100% chance of being granted classic (the chance of the latter is also close to zero).
Depending on what you want to experiment with, you could also develop and install your snap locally; once things are working as you expect, you can request classic confinement.
Thank you for the kind answers !
This is to test a specific SDK, we will first try devmode and local snap install (did not think about installing locally actuallly) Thanks for the tips !
While I’m at it is it possible to have a track called “testing” on our private snap ? (we have only one)
Since the other track is used for our user deployment, we need one track to test deployment, updates etc. over different channels without potentially breaking the other user.
Best,
Tracks are really meant for stable and mutually-incompatible versions of your software, particularly because once a person installs from a specific track, they “stick” to it and will not get updates published in other tracks. Also, tracks are discoverable (they show in “snap info” output) so you will have a hard time keeping people from installing by mistake from the track.
I understand your snap is private at the moment, which means you don’t have a lot of users (because you would need to share your login which also gives them upload permissions which is BAD 
) and some of these items may not be too concerning - but because of that, I also wonder if you might be able to do your test using existing channels like edge or beta.
We recommend putting things like daily builds or tests in the edge or beta channels.
Cheers,
We are working for a company who sells embedded hardware with a snap running and we want to update it remotely, is this not possible ? How should we do ?
(they don’t want the snap public)
With some research it seems that an auto-refresh would work on private snaps, is this not the case anymore ? : Automatic refresh of private snaps
Our Brand Store solution can cover your requirements and I’d recommend you get in touch with our team via the contact form on https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things.
Specifically, snaps can be registered to a Brand Store and then only devices that are signed into the Brand Store can see those snaps, but they otherwise behave as any public snap would, with tracks and auto-refresh and all the usual snap features.
Private snaps should totally auto-refresh, the issue you pointed to is quite old and probably solved or was just a misuse/misunderstanding.
I struggled to find enough documentation for branded store, is there any ? I did send a mai to the canonical team.
Also we don’t use ubuntu IOT for technical reason, so I don’t know if a branded store can be used or not in this configuration.
Thank you for the information
You’ll get more information about brand stores when someone gets back to you. I think a brand store can be used with Ubuntu Classic, but best to wait until someone replies to your request.
Hi,
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the Brand Store and how it can support your project.
Please contact me on David.weaver@canonical.com so we can arrange a convenient time to discuss.
…
Kind Regards,
David Weaver
Business Development, IoT & Devices | Canonical, UK
Thanks ! I will be in touch by mail.