Currently I have HAOS running on a Debian 11 box (HP prodesk 16GB ram/Intel(R) Core™ i5-4590/500gb ssd) in a virtualbox vm.
Its been running ok-isch for the last couple of months.
Before that I had it running on a rpi 4.
Im saying ok-isch because it crashed a few times vm-wise and I had a database corruption.
I can always get it back up and running, but because of this, Im looking for something comparable but more stable.
And everytime I end up with people saying proxmox.
I dont know proxmox, but Im more than willing to learn this.
Im adequately experienced in debian/raspbian/linux distro’s.
Im experienced in windows (untill 11)
My question now is:
I use debian mainly for my Virtualbox HaOS VM.
I also have Pihole with Unbound and Wireguard for VPN running on this machine. (outside the VM)
What are the pro and con’s switching this machine to proxmox to run HaOS? (and preferably also Pihole/Unbound/Wireguard VPN)
It’s really hard to quantify a pro/con because it’s situationally dependent.
I flipped to Proxmox from running VMware player on Windows and couldn’t be happier. I have had no stability issues, device passthrough works perfectly, and I really dig the granularity it provides for disk/network management. The HACS integration is pretty nice for managing/monitoring the VMs (of course that’s out the window if the problematic VM is HA).
I’m running HA, piHole in a container, a Windows 10 VM that’s running Plex, and TrueNAS. I have four 8 TB drives passed through to TrueNas with a 1 TB SSD shared between the VMs.
I ran into same issues (Debian 11, virtualbox). I also had some stability issues virtualbox (starting HA on boot is a pain). If you are reasonably comfortable with ‘apt’ I would say just upgrade to bookworm, ‘Install Home Assistant Supervised’. Well documented, just a handfull of ‘cut & paste’ from the HA instructions. The Debian upgrade istruction are NOT a part of the HA installation instructions, but it is also just a ‘cut & paste’ from the instructions. 30min for upgrade of debian, and 30mins to install HA.
Debian 12 is currently supported by Homeassistant with Debian 11 dropping off the support list sometime soon…
If you are using this box for other things, you may want to keep the VM.
Im interested in proxmox just fore the sole reason that you cut out a section of running HA, and the sheer stability of it. (Or at least thats what I read)
I mean now im running HA like this:
Debian/Virtualbox/HaOS.
If i understand correct proxmox will be the os that runs vm itself, so one less system to worry about.
Proxmox/HaOS.
Go on eBay and buy a used NUC i3, (you can find them for around $100). Flash the HAOS X-86 binary to the M.2 SSD. Done.
I do not need nor want the complication of learning to use a Virtual anything or Proxmox or other virtuosity, which in my opinion only adds yet another vector for failure. MY Home Assistant is running on an Intel NUC i3 in my basement, and it runs for many months without a reboot. (Usually because I make some hardware changes).
I am running Haos on proxmox in a vm. It works fine and fast. I changed it from a vm on synology Ds918 to proxmox server on a lenovo m910q with i5 7500. The instructions you can find in the internet and on youtube. It is pretty simple to install proxomox and work with proxmox. Most time it is copy and paste. Before you transfer your system make a backup. On the new system you can restore it. The first restore can take a long time, if you have a large database, a lot of integrations and addons. My first restore lasts round about 2 hours. Wait.
Its not the data/system transfer Im worried about.
Im just not satisfied with my current Debian/Virtualbox VM system because it needs a lot of attention when things go awol. And they go awol at least once in two/three months.
I have the “Home Assistant Google Drive Backup” addon running (which is fantastic for the HA backups!) but also running “back in Time”(rsync) for the total virtualbox directory, because it failed me more than once…
I just want a stable haos environment that runs without my help for long periods.
edit:// I clicked delete and cant post the same post twice, silly me…
I am running HAOS on Proxmox in a VM. Similar to others above, been running for 2+ years now without issue. My HAOS VM is one of many VMs and Containers that I’m currently running: HAOS, ESPHome, MQTT, MariaDB, InfluxDB, Grafana, WireGuard, Jellyfin, Recursive Pi-Hole, Solar Assistant, a few random Ubuntu VMs, Windows of various flavors, etc. No issues here.
Best part is you can run it on whatever hardware you want. A NUC is great for smaller and more energy efficient requirements, but you can scale it up to whatever size you want.
It takes a little bit to get familiar with it, but its not bad.
Having the ability to fully backup a VM/Container to a remote location/device (TrueNAS in my case) is also nice for those random times when you do something stupid and need to just restore quickly to get running again.
Plenty of Pro’s for Proxmox, as I listed above.
Cons of Proxmox are basically having to learn a new virtualization software package and realizing that you have to patch it from time to time, which requires shutting everything down (assuming you don’t have multiple hosts).
I ran HAOS on dedicated hardware at one point, but with the sheer number of add-ins/packages/external systems I was needing, the number of Raspberry PIs and NUCs and other devices was getting annoying and ugly to manage.
Hopefully that is somewhat helpful overall.
This is at the bottomline exactly what I want.
The one thing I am up against is the fact that Im also running Pihole/Unbound/Wireguard on this machine.
Ive been looking for alternatives to run Pihole/Unbound on a HaOS machine (I know wiregaurd has a great ha addon).
I dont mind updating, Im a update freak (au courant if I might say )…
I know I said I want a system that gos on without my attention, but I didnt count in updating the system into that.
Learning a new virtualization software isnt a con per se imho.
No problem jba!
I’m also a bit of an update freak. My day job is all over security updates and such so it tends to carry over into my home life as well.
Learning a new virtualization software isn’t a con to me, but a lot of people see having to learn as a downside as it takes effort/time to do so. The more you know, the better… at least in most instances.
To make your decision easier look some youtube videos about this theme if you have time. It took for me one or two days to install proxmox and haos. I am a noob with linux. I am grown up with windows.
Since using proxmox and haos vm, no more a system crash.
When I did the move to Proxmox, I had it installed and HA along with piHole running within a few hours. HA was the easiest part since it was using a helper script to do the install and then just doing a restore of a full backup I took right before starting everything. Just make sure you give the HA VM the same IP as before. I did the same thing with piHole moving from a Hyper-V VM to a container in Proxmox.
sounds like your running it as a dedicated hypervisor for you vms then.
maybe its time for you to move on to proxmox instead. installing haos on proxmox is soooo easy, just use the Proxmox VE Helper Scripts to get it started.
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