Can 2 HA PC's Operate in Tandem on Same LAN?

Configuration
1

Hi,

I have two identical BeeLink Mini-S. The one on the right runs HA (Ubuntu installed) for day to day Z-Wave and other normal uses.

The Beelink box on the left is presently virgin; I would like to use it to train myself and experiment (non-retribution), and make mistakes, and reformat/reinstall as needed.

Question becomes, and being mindful of same URL, and especially same port 8123, is there a way to put the 2nd one on a slightly different URL and port, so both can run in tandem? Or, will DHCP simply take care of the URL but not the port?

Many thanks for all your efforts !!!

Beelink
Beelink1030Ă—686 196 KB

2

Use a different IP address. If you are doing home automation, everything on the LAN should have a fixed IP.

3

This is where VMs can be so usefull

For instance if you setup proxmox and install HAOS in a vm, you can then duplicate that with the same ip and mac. Its then only a matter of shuting one vm down and spinning up the other, you can then mess with the training one as much as you want. You working setup will still be there just waiting to be spun back up after messing about. there will be no need for plugging in dongles or changing ips. It will be far easier long term.

And you only need one pc.

1 Like
4

Hi @dzmiller and @Arh
Exploring both ideas seems like fun to do. Putting the 2nd HA install into a VM, on my gaming PC (for convenience) should be fun to do, although if I leave the primary HA up and running, then login to the VM residing HA might be conflicting it seems.

The easy way, is to unplug the Ethernet cable from the primary BeeLink box, then diddle with the “experimental” BeeLink box. Z-wave from the primary BeeLink box would just doing what it does with Z-wave stuff.

Idea for a A.I. video … Video of causing a login conflict, magnesium flares go off under the PCs causing explosions (like they do in Sci Fi movies).

Thanks very much for replying :slight_smile:

5

Two HA instances on the same network is fine whether you use sepperate appliances or VM’s, they’ll each have their own instance id. The only real issues you might run into are:

  • If you are running the same addon’s on both HA instances as some addons do not play well with multiple instances of themselves (Music Assistant for example).
  • If you copy your automations over as they will both trigger and fight with each other to control devices.
  • If you allow the second/test instance remote access via Nabu Casa. I don’t know about other remote access methods but Nabu Casa will automatically connect to the last HA instance to knock at it’s door (eg. you restart your second instance last)

As a glutton for punishment I do this to myself with a second VM HA instance which I restore from a backup of my production instance every month for beta testing. Over a year later I still forget to turn off remote access for the second instance :roll_eyes:.

6

thanks for bring up this topic and replies, I had been recently thinking about setting up a second instance to run on beta modes, but had concerns about conflicts with each other, especially around homeassistant.local use and automations/addons/integrations stepping on each other.

this helps confirm and let me be aware of potential issues

7

If it has not been stated yet, then remember to rename one of your HA installations in the HA settings → network.
If you do not rename it then they will fight each other over the mDNS registration.