After setting up HA in a VM on my desktop PC and having confirmed that it works to control my different hardware, I am now planning to move HA to a dedicated system. For this I just set up a Raspi 5 with Raspberry OS installed on it. However, I realize that the next steps are far from obvious:
My thoughts were to install HA in parallel to some other Pi applications. Because of the different “sensors” (e.g. E3DC photovoltaic, Daikin air condition and some Homematic devices), HACS is required to install the respective addon’s. I understand that addon’s now either require HA OS or a supervised installation - a simple Docker/Core setup is not enough.
I came across a few supervised setup explanations. See for example
The first one needs Debian 12, the second one refers to a Raspi 4 and is three years old… Is there any way to having HA operate in parallel to standard Raspi applications on a Raspi 5 or is one bound to using dedicated HA software?
HACS does not have addon’s, I guess you refer to custom integrations ? And everything in HACS can be installed on any HA installation, HA OS, HA Container, HA Core and HA Supervised.
Addons are also containers, prepared to be managed by Supervisor. A Docker setup is certainly enough, but then you have to manage the containers yourself. You cannot use addons, but you can always rack up a container with the same software that is in the addon.
If you choose a path without supervisor because you want to do things yourself besides Home Assistant, well then you need to… do things yourself.
A docker/core setup seems contradictory though. The Container distribution is advised if you want to use Docker. Core is intended for when you do not want to use a container, or some other virtualization technique.
So to be frank, it seems like you do not fully understand the use case and advantages of each advanced installation type. There’s no shame in that, it holds true for most of us, me included. My advice (and that of many others is) is that in such cases you should go for HAOS.
Don’t pick a more advanced installation unless you really need it, fully understand the implications, and know how to manage the things you run besides Home Assistant. Also because by going for a more advanced installation method means you won’t easily get support and that you cannot follow tutorials: these all assume you do not need a tutorial if you go pro.
HAOS is not an option. I want to be able to install HA-unrelated applications, e.g. a backup solution for my Windows PCs.
Correct, sorry for the misunderstanding. Then a container setup might be compatible with my plans. Yet supervised would be preferred as it allows easy HA updates just like with HAOS. I may be wrong though and a simple Core setup does the job.
dpkg: Vor-Abhaengigkeitsproblem betreffend homeassistant-supervised.deb, welches homeassistant-supervised enthaelt:
homeassistant-supervised hängt (vorher) von systemd-journal-remote ab
systemd-journal-remote ist nicht installiert…
Coming from the Windows world I am drinking from a fire hose here. Notwithstanding, I have the feeling that I am getting closer
Yep, just installed it an ran the script again. I like the advice to run HA Core. :-). The script executes but returns a generic error (code 1):
sudo dpkg -i homeassistant-supervised.deb
(Lese Datenbank … 150341 Dateien und Verzeichnisse sind derzeit installiert.)
Vorbereitung zum Entpacken von homeassistant-supervised.deb …
[warn]
[warn] If you want more control over your own system, run
[warn] Home Assistant as a VM or run Home Assistant Core
[warn] via a Docker container.
[warn]
[warn] ModemManager service is enabled. This might cause issue when using serial devices.
»Umleitung von /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf zu /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf.real durch homeassistant-supervised« wird hinzugefügt
»Umleitung von /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/default zu /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/default.real durch homeassistant-supervised« wird hinzugefügt
»Umleitung von /etc/docker/daemon.json zu /etc/docker/daemon.json.real durch homeassistant-supervised« wird hinzugefügt
»Umleitung von /etc/network/interfaces zu /etc/network/interfaces.real durch homeassistant-supervised« wird hinzugefügt
»Umleitung von /etc/systemd/resolved.conf zu /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.real durch homeassistant-supervised« wird hinzugefügt
Entpacken von homeassistant-supervised (1.8.0) …
homeassistant-supervised (1.8.0) wird eingerichtet …
[info] Reload systemd
[info] Restarting NetworkManager
[info] Enable systemd-resolved
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten des Paketes homeassistant-supervised (–install):
»installiertes post-installation-Skript des Paketes homeassistant-supervised«-Unterprozess gab den Fehlerwert 1 zurück
Fehler traten auf beim Bearbeiten von:
homeassistant-supervised
Maybe I start from scratch, do a clean reinstall of RaspiOS and then go for HA Core to see if I can import the backup from the VM.
Raspi OS might cause issues in the future, because HA follows the Devices releases and sometimes deprecate OS versions faster than the Raspi OS is updated.
You might be able to handle this by delaying updates, but the supervisor is a bit tricky to prevent from auto-updating, and that is the part that will complain about it.
Choosing to run on Raspi OS will make your system become i supported, which is not the same as unhealthy though.
This means help might be tricky, because the devs and the forum are not sure how your setup works, so you will often only get hints at what to look at and you need then work out yourself what might be wrong.
Regarding Homematic, then Debmatic might be a solution too, when you run Supervised.
A minor issue remains: the Pi5 is no longer booting from the NVME but requires the SD card, which I had used to copy the system from onto the SSD. I had removed the previously installed packages before the successful HA setup. Apparently something got damaged.
It is rather cosmetic, but ideally I would be able to repair the boot files on the SSD.and remove the card. Interestingly, \boot\firmware contains no file. It is actually completely empty, so no wonder that booting from SSD is not working.
Is there a way to just copy the boot files from the SD card to the SSD?
I just got prompted for a new HA Core update 2.9.2 plus an integration. No automatic update, I had to trigger it manually.
Right, in fact “supervised” is labelled as “no support”. I guess that I have to live with that.
I mainly use Homematic window contacts which report closed/tilted/open. Under FHEM I was feeding this for each window into my LCN bus system for further processing (e.g. shutter control).
Connector and devices are some 15 years old. I just wanted to give it a try under HA before moving to something more modern. Siegenia is selling the intelligent handle, which uses the Matter protocol. Issue here is that the handle distinguishes between the three states, but the Matter protocol treats tilted and open both as open.
Why put yourself through the hassle of managing yet another virtual system? Just get another Pi for your “extras” and dedicate one for HAOS. Better yet, for the price of a new Pi4, case and power supply you can buy a mini-PC for HAOS like the Intel NUC that will blow the socks off the performance of the Pi.
So there would be HAOS on top of the already existing
Backup solution (which today is a full-blown MS Server Essentials setup - legacy from 2010)
RPi-A with Homematic/FHEM
RPI-B that runs the LCN bus system connection
That’s why I don’t really bother about the hassle of keeping HA Supervised updated (which comes down to a simple wget and one apt install command).
In fact, consolidating this into one piece of hardware will save me a lot of time and effort in the future. There is also the cost element. Here in Germany electricity is expensive and with 10 W consumption, each of these units is about 30 € year over year.
I would ACTIVELY be trying to get rid of this that server by itself is a big honkin security issue. Solve that and you’re no longer beholden to it. (and it’s worth solving)
You may want to familiarize yourself with MS Server Essentials. It also backups all connected devices. And qualifying this as a security issue is quite questionable, given the millions of installations. Unless you think that Microsoft is not to be trusted.
I will replace this with a Syncthing solution that runs on thr Rpi5 and synchronizes/backups files on it (2 TB SSD). This is coupled with an additional software Duplicati that copies the RPi data to an external system.
That has nothing to do with the backup but the simple reason that I want to run more than just HA on the RPi5.
