Hi,
I’m trying to run Home Assistant on old hardware and I’m stuck with a network access issue despite many tests.
Here is my setup and what I already tried.
Machine 1 – ASUS i5 (Windows host + VirtualBox)
Windows host
VirtualBox VM
Linux 2.6 VM
Home Assistant OS running inside the VM
Home Assistant boots correctly:
HA core = running
I get an IP address
ping works
but I cannot access http://IP:8123 from any device or browser (timeout)
I tested:
Bridge (Wi-Fi)
Bridge (Ethernet)
NAT + port forwarding
Windows firewall disabled
router ports open
Nothing works.
Also, HA shows a Docker/internal IP (172.x.x.x) and it looks like containers are not properly exposed to the LAN.
Ping works, but HTTP never responds.
Machine 2 – Sony VAIO (old laptop)
Installed Ubuntu 18.04 → works
Tried installing HAOS directly on disk (bare metal)
HAOS either doesn’t boot or is extremely slow
I suspect the hardware is too weak for HAOS
My question
Is this expected behavior?
Is HAOS too heavy for old laptops?
Is VirtualBox + Wi-Fi bridge known to block port 8123?
Should I instead install Home Assistant Supervised (Docker) directly on Ubuntu rather than HAOS?
If someone successfully runs HA on similar old hardware, what setup would you recommend?
Thanks a lot!