Whilst I’m reasonably happy with my current set up I would rather go back to Proxmox purely because having no Linux background I am more comfortable with the concepts. I have tried and to some extent do understand Docker (and Portainer) but the details really aren’t gelling well with me.
So the question is, would my Ubuntu/Docker/Hassio snapshot restore everything correctly if I move back to Proxmox?
I’m thinking here of addons which is why I suspect I might get answers along the lines of ‘it depends’.
My current addons giving most pause for thought are: InfluxDB
Grafana
Unifi Controller
Zero Tier One
As well as these, which I suspect are less likely to ‘break’: DuckDNS
ESPHome
Mosquitto Broker
SSH Samba
Samba Share
The only reason is as I said because I get the concepts better.
A VM is conceptually just a another computer (and I’m fairly comfortable with hypervisor and VMs anyway).
Conceptually Ubuntu is equivalent to Windows.
Hassio being a Docker container is completely transparent and the add-ons just become ‘extensions’ to HA which is just a program like Word, Excel, Photoshop… whatever.
Running Docker itself in Ubuntu is adding a whole layer of ‘mystery’ to me with only this forum as a source of information. Apart from the docs obviously but they are not aimed at a Linux novice like me.
I guess it is purely a feeling of comfort. I often wonder how I would recover from a complete disaster. I’d have to relearn quite a lot of what I did to put this system together because stuff is hard to retain if you don’t use it.
Also as you say, if I wanted to add something else to my NUC outside of HA I wouldn’t need to understand Docker.
I completely take your point though and a big part of me says if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
It is, because I don’t even need to know that hassio and the add-ons are Docker. Docker is completely transparent. It is all just HA.
Which is what I believed to be the case for several months when I first started out with HA!
It is mostly about the comfort feeling that I understand what is going on but…
Curently for one thing, I have to make sure to keep Docker (and Portainer) itself up to date.
Not a big deal I grant you but it’s just one less thing I would have to think about.
You would still have to do that in your Ubuntu vm on proxmox though.
As you say, a vm is like having another computer.
So your current setup is a computer with Ubuntu/docker/hassio on it, and your new setup will be, proxmox within which you will have a computer with Ubuntu/docker/hassio on it.
I feel like I’m missing something you’re trying to get across to me that will make it different?
I switched from ubuntu to debian this past weekend with snapshots without any home assistant hiccups that weren’t’ foreseen. For example, I had zoneminder setup in a docker container, I had to reset that up on debian (because I haven’t found a hassio container that does this). The snapshot restored everything. Super lazy.
So if all you have is hassio addons and nothing configured in the main OS, then all you need to do is restore a snapshot and possibly update your home assistant IP in your router/config files. I ended up on the same computer so my ip didn’t change because I had setup dhcp reservation and the mac didn’t change. For you, the mac address will change and your dhcp reservation will as well.
EDIT: As a side note, I agree with @anon43302295. It seems pointless to change because you aren’t gaining anything on this.
I’m starting to think maybe it is me that is missing something.
Am I wrong in thinking that if I go Proxmox/Ubuntu/Hassio I don’t have to ever know that Docker running in there somewhere?
When I was on a Pi it was Pi/Hassio. As far as I was concerned that was it. Everything else was transparent. I didn’t even know what docker was for long time.
To be honest, it’s hard to put a case when both @anon43302295 and @petro are telling me I have nothing to gain!
I have docker on debian and I don’t care about it at all. I only managed it because I was running zoneminder. I removed zoneminder and now I don’t even have to worry about it. It’s identical to hassio, but I have the option to manage it if I want.
Actually, there’s a case. I have nothing configured on the main OS partly because I am too afraid to mess with it. (No Linux experience). Using Proxmox I can have a separate Ubuntu machine(s) which I can experiment with and install other things on.
I’m thinking you’re talking about using the hassos image thingy for that use case? That’s not how you’ll be using it if you follow the instructions you linked to in the OP.
I totally get using proxmox and spinning up other vms for things, that’s what I use it for and as I said earlier I’m not trying to dissuade you, I’m just concerned that you don’t quite have a handle on what you’ll actually be achieving, which from a homeassistant standpoint will not be any different to the Ubuntu/docker/hassio that you already have. All you’ll actually be doing is moving that set up a layer up in to a vm.
Thanks, yes, you are and have been all along, right. I read the link in the OP but my limited Linux knowledge meant I didn’t entirely follow it. That was for another day after I had decided if the switch was going to be relatively painless and (ahem) risk free.
I’ll hang on for now but the call of multiple VMs is definitely getting stronger. Maybe I should look into something like Monitor to satisfy my need for Bluetooth for presence detection……
Thanks to you both for your help and your usual patience.
Well, the bonuses if you do decide to move over are that you’ll basically be in the exact same scenario with homeassistant that you’re in now(within the vm), and you’ll know how to get your Bluetooth working as per the link in the OP.
Plus you’ll get more exposure to things outside of your comfort zone, which can only increase your learning.
On a side note though I migrated my Bluetooth tracking to monitor (2 rpi zero w, one on the ground floor, one on the first) some time ago, and then use an automation that converts it back in to an actual device tracker with the device_tracker.see service and its been absolutely flawless and far better than the native implementation, so if you wanted my opinion on what you should do (and you’d be the only person on the planet ) , I would…
Go to proxmox anyway (as noted above your snapshots should work, but enact an extra backup policy just in case)
Set up monitor for your Bluetooth tracking.
Start playing with some vms in proxmox for the love of learning Linux.
Hi all,
I have a similar but different question…
I’m on Debian but am now looking to run HASSIO on a NUC.
The latest update seems to no longer support Debian, been through this a few times now and just going to go with HASSIO.
Can I simply do a full back up from my Debian install and restore on HASSIO and expect everything to work?
I have ~20 integrations in HACS, 14 Addons and 33 integrations in HA… I bet the answer is nope, but thought I’d check before I bring everything down…
Well that’s wonderful news!
I was under the impression I’d need to change OS’.
When I upgraded to 2022.11.1 it threw a whole bunch of errors at me. Had to do a restore.
I must admit I’m not sure where to find the status of the supervisor status in the latest version of the interface anymore. I’ll go and find it and see if I can get it back to a supported state before I try and upgrade.
I’m running Buster (Version 10), not Bullseye!
I’ll see about fixing that!
Yay!
Those errors are things you should have fixed over the past few years that you probably didn’t know about. All 2022.11 did was expose those issues to the front end. So those issues exist in your backup as well, you just have to hunt to find them.
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