[help needed] Beginner guide Zigbee2mqqt, proxmox, home assistant

[sidney]

I have managed to install proxmox on a HP T630. On this i have installed Home Assistant.

After doing research i have found that it would be best to install zigbee2mqqt as a seperate container on proxmox. I have bought a smlight slzb-06u and have it connected via USB to the HP T630.

No wi have tried to follow a couple of guides but something somewhere is always just a bit different and now it does not work.

Can someone please explain further the steps i should take?
How to Separate Zigbee2MQTT from Home Assistant - SmartHomeScene

This seems to be a good tutorial however i get stuck at the yaml file. could someone help me (and others) with a step by step tutorial?

[fleskefjes]

@sidney

After doing research i have found that it would be best to install zigbee2mqqt as a seperate container on proxmox.

Why is this best? If you are running HAOS it is easy to set up Z2M as an add on. You don’t gain much by separating them, especially as a beginner.

@sidney

This seems to be a good tutorial however i get stuck at the yaml file

Can you show the .yaml and point to where you are stuck? Also show relevant logs.

[sidney]

Oké i will try to find a tutorial for z2mqqt as an addon in HA. I will mount the zigbee usb coördinator in proxmox to the home assistant virtual machine.

[ShadowFist]

@sidney

I have bought a smlight slzb-06u and have it connected via USB to the HP T630

Connecting a zigbee coordinator which supports ethernet & Poe directly via usb is just about the worst thing you can do.

If you don’t have Poe available, hook it up to ethernet somewhere central & give it power via a mobile charger. Otherwise you’ll lose all the benefits & have to deal with setting up usb passthrough in proxmox.

[Sir_Goodenough ((SG) WhatAreWeFixing.Today)]

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[sidney]

Great will do that! I don;t have Poe availabale yet but i am experimenting for the new house. How can I connect the zigbee coordinator to HA?

[fleskefjes]

You can use USB to power it and still use the ethernet port for communication.

[sidney]

I have attached the smlight slzb-06u with Ethernet cable and found the ip adress and can see the dashboard:
ip: http://192.168.178.13/
I have updated the firmware, connection type to LAN.
In my router i have added the IP adress as fixed DHCP.

Now in home assistant i have installed Mosquito, installed and it seems to have started.

[17:48:15] INFO: Starting mosquitto MQTT broker...
2026-01-13 17:48:15: mosquitto version 2.0.22 starting
2026-01-13 17:48:15: Config loaded from /etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf.
2026-01-13 17:48:15: Loading plugin: /usr/share/mosquitto/go-auth.so
2026-01-13 17:48:15: Warning: Mosquitto should not be run as root/administrator.
2026-01-13 17:48:15:  ├── Username/password checking enabled.
2026-01-13 17:48:15:  ├── TLS-PSK checking enabled.
2026-01-13 17:48:15:  └── Extended authentication not enabled.
2026-01-13 17:48:15: Opening ipv4 listen socket on port 1883.
2026-01-13 17:48:15: Opening ipv6 listen socket on port 1883.
2026-01-13 17:48:15: Opening websockets listen socket on port 1884.
2026-01-13 17:48:15: mosquitto version 2.0.22 running
2026-01-13 17:48:15: New connection from ::1:56666 on port 1883.
2026-01-13 17:48:15: Client <unknown> disconnected due to protocol error.
[17:48:15] INFO: Successfully send discovery information to Home Assistant.
[17:48:16] INFO: Successfully send service information to the Supervisor.

Now according to the documentation of Moquitto i should perform the following steps

Create a new user for MQTT via your Home Assistant's frontend Settings -> People -> Users , (i.e. not on Mosquitto's Configuration tab). Notes:

1. This name cannot be homeassistant or addons, those are reserved usernames.
2. If you do not see the option to create a new user, ensure that Advanced Mode is enabled in your Home Assistant profile.

To use the Mosquitto as a broker, go to the integration page and install the configuration with one click:
1. Navigate in your Home Assistant frontend to Settings -> Devices & Services -> Integrations.
2. MQTT should appear as a discovered integration at the top of the page
3. Select it and check the box to enable MQTT discovery if desired, and hit submit.

First lets install Zigbee2MQTT, added it.
Turn on start on boot, watchdog and add to sidebar.
press start.

[17:53:00] INFO: Preparing to start...
[17:53:01] INFO: Socat not enabled
[17:53:01] INFO: Starting Zigbee2MQTT...
Starting Zigbee2MQTT without watchdog.
Onboarding page is available at http://0.0.0.0:8099/

Seems to have started. when i open the web ui i see:
Zigbee2MQTT Onboarding
Set the base configuration to start Zigbee2MQTT.
…
Here i need to fill out a a lot of information.

Instead of doing that i think that i can instead configure Z2M in the configuration and edit the YAML.

Current YAML

data_path: /config/zigbee2mqtt
socat:
  enabled: false
  master: pty,raw,echo=0,link=/tmp/ttyZ2M,mode=777
  slave: tcp-listen:8485,keepalive,nodelay,reuseaddr,keepidle=1,keepintvl=1,keepcnt=5
  options: "-d -d"
  log: false
mqtt: {}
serial: {}

In the dashboard of the smlight slzb-06u i find the config generator:

# Pay attention, if you use the Z2M addon for HA, it is better to edit Z2M addon yaml configuration file directly (Select the 3 dot menu in the upper right corner → "Edit in YAML")
serial:
# Location of SLZB-06U
  port: tcp://192.168.178.13:6638
  baudrate: 115200
  adapter: zstack
# Disable green led?
  disable_led: false
# Set output power to max 20
advanced:
  transmit_power: 20

Now i have added this to the YAML file so my new YAML file is:

data_path: /config/zigbee2mqtt
socat:
  enabled: false
  master: pty,raw,echo=0,link=/tmp/ttyZ2M,mode=777
  slave: tcp-listen:8485,keepalive,nodelay,reuseaddr,keepidle=1,keepintvl=1,keepcnt=5
  options: "-d -d"
  log: false
mqtt: {}
serial: {}
# Pay attention, if you use the Z2M addon for HA, it is better to edit Z2M addon yaml configuration file directly (Select the 3 dot menu in the upper right corner → "Edit in YAML")
serial:
# Location of SLZB-06U
  port: tcp://192.168.178.13:6638
  baudrate: 115200
  adapter: zstack
# Disable green led?
  disable_led: false
# Set output power to max 20
advanced:
  transmit_power: 20

I press save, and are promted to restart, then my YAML is changed back to the previous ‘standard’ text.

Can you please help with the steps i should take next - either the correct YAML or with what to fill out in the Zigbee2MQTT Onboarding?

[ShadowFist]

@sidney

Can you please help with the steps i should take next

You have 2 serial: sections. Delete the top one:

Also, your mqtt section is entirely empty. Assuming it’s been set up correctly, you need to let Z2M know the IP address (should be the IP of your MQTT container) and port (1883) as a bare minimum according to this.

Personally, if you’re getting stuck with using yaml, I would recommend just filling out the onboarding page.

[sidney]

Thanks, i will try tonight.

[sidney]

I have used the onboarding and suddenly it works. I don’t know why but i can add devices Thank you all for the help

[ShadowFist]

Probably because the Onboarding page doesn’t contain duplicate serial: keys