Since my previous post had 78 views and no responses, I’ll change the direction. As a n00b, if I am going to begin my journey with HA today (given current uncertainty), what is the best install method to grow from? This is a NUC which has a primary purpose of HA. I want the ability to generally use HA add-ons but in certain cases, might have need to use a function which is not assimilated such as VLC.
Currently, I am playing with HA core in docker on Ubuntu. Is there a benefit to consider HA as a VM on proxmox instead when beginning this journey? In my opinion and brief experience, the biggest drawback to using Home Assistant OS is that I am locked, in case for example, when I need to output media locally as run into last week on my Pi sandbox running HA-OS.
I would at least do docker, whether you want that in a proxmox vm, I think depends on if you are planning to run more than one OS type. But I think docker provides easier upgrade/rollback than a VM.
I personally run docker on centos on ESXi. But I have multiple operating systems. I stick with Centos for servers, but sometimes need Win10 or Ubuntu desktops.
That was my inclination as I read the proxmox documentation. I have no interest in running different OS types since this is merely a HA box in primary form. I think I will continue to play with HA in docker.
I would love to work with hassio in a docker but it seems HA OS or Core are my current options as the link for HA on generic Linux was removed. While depreciated, it doesn’t seem that the option is something they want more new users to implement.
That’s the 64m dollar question. One of the mods hinted that debian+HA Supervised was not a bad choice going forward. So there may be new life coming yet.
If you plan on choosing an installation type, it is beneficial to use the correct terms.
Hassio was never “in a docker”. The Home Assistant application was in a docker container that ran in docker hosted by a minimal operating system and managed by a Supervisor service in a separate docker container (plus a few more containers).
The combination of all of those containers and operating system was called hassio. It was re-branded many months ago and hassio is now known as Home Assistant. The application itself is now called Home Assistant Core.
Given you have a NUC, the easiest installation is Home Assistant with the disk-image for Intel NUC.
If you install the Portainer Add-On, it permits you to install other services, as docker containers, that might not be available as Add-Ons.
If you have no interest in Add-Ons and prefer to install services available as standard docker containers then proceed the way you already have: Home Assistant Core as a docker container running in docker on some distro of Linux ( you’re using Ubuntu). It is a supported type of installation and provides a great deal of flexibility.
If you absolutely want Home Assistant but on generic Linux (not HassOS), there’s Home Assistant Supervised but its future is unclear at the moment.
Thanks for the replies here. I actually moved forward with the NUC disk image. As you mention, it was the easiest and while I am learning to manipulate the system, I didn’t want to take a crash course in linux AND docker at the same time. I did manage to muck around core a bit, set up several dockers and play with them in portainer so the experience was worthwhile.
Taras, I found your post very informative. WIth the most recent update (110), I see that portainer was added as an addon. That was the functionality I was looking for in HassOS from the start…something to work with if I wanted to step outside of the canned addons. I think this solution will fit my needs well.
Just to add info so you can make your own best choice.
Im running HomeAssistant in proxmox now. (formaly known as HassIO).
Installed using Whiskerz’s script. Proxmox + HomeAssistant works flawless, even usb passtrough, Add-ons, updating, etc work without a fuzz…
As a bonus, Proxmox allows snapshots and backup/restore actions.
Why am I taking this route?
in proxmox, I run each in a separate instance:
homeassistant (ip adress 1)
ubuntu with unifi controller software (ip adress 2)
nas- software, OpenMediaVault (ip adress 3)
Mosquitto broker (ip adress 4)
And i am playing with PiHole now. If its nothing, i will just delete the VM instance.
If something else comes along, i will try that
I am no expert on virtualisation, but I took the same approach as @nontijt. I run HassOS on proxmox, and a number of other servers on the same box (not a NUC, but a self-built server). Where I differ slightly is that other home automation stuff that is easily available as a plugin in HassIO (e.g. mosquitto) I install from there to keep everything easy to manage.
So I have on Proxmox:
HassOS
FreeNAS
PiHole
OpenVPN
All have their own IP. This allows me to spin up a new server whenever I want to test something - e.g. Motioneye, Zoneminder, and if I don’t like it/use it I just power it off.
Mosquitto, ESPHome etc. are installed as plugins on HassOS, rather than additional servers.
I believe I might take one of my old boxes and work with this a bit when I have time. I wouldn’t mind exploring some of the options and capabilities. At the moment, the primary target is to finish configuring HA OS on the NUC since I have disavowed wink now.
I’m interested in virtualization and Proxmox but want to do this with a NUC, maybe and i5 to run Plex. I need some suggestions on configuration and what drives to buy.
I was watching youtube and most installations require 3 drives, 1 for Proxmox, 1 for VMs, 1 for ISOs. Not sure how this will work on a NUC.
I do have a synology NAS on RAID 1 that I use for movie storage.
I think a NUC would be good as well to run the things you want. I dont know about the virtualisation hardware in the NUC. Reading others here have that setup, I guess that should work fine.
I recently installed HA on Proxmox on an i3 NUC. Put a WD Blue 250GB SSD M.2 2280 and added 500GB 2.5in SSD that I had lying around. Proxmox partitioned the 250GB SSD and uses about 60 GB for itself. The 2 VMs I currently have are both on that same SSD; HA and Ubuntu. I run InfluxDB on the Ubuntu server and configured HA to send data to that. It all seems to run fine.
I am interested to run HA in an old laptop but in a need for local storage i am thinking that the best way will be to use a NUC or a similar setup as proposed by @nontijt .
But, does anyone try to reutilise an old laptop to run as main server while keeping local storage in a NAS-alike solution?
