Where to run Node-RED?

Third party integrations Node-RED
1

I’m sure there’s a lot of opinions on this but I’d like to hear some of them.

I’ve been testing HAOS on a Pi400 for the last month or so and I’m now at the point werehe I want to create a VirtualBox VM to run HAOS. My question is where should I run Node-RED? Should I go with the add-on method or in another VM or yet another physical machine? I’m thinking another VM connected to an internal network using a virtual network adapter.

Any guidance is appreciated.

2

It depends on your usage and available hardware.

In my case, Node-RED isn’t needed if Home Assistant is off (maintenance, etc.). So I use it as an add-on.

Since I have a mini PC running Proxmox, I would create an LXC server if I needed Node-RED running independently of Home Assistant.

3

Thanks for the suggestion. It’s been a while since I last looked at Proxmox but I thought it had problems with attaching USB devices to VMs. So far I’ll be using a ZWA-2 and a Conbee II, which are both USB.

I need to think about whether or not I need Node-RED to be independent of Home Assistant.

4

I originally set up NR in a separate VM along with other services that could alternatively be installed as addons (eg MQTT). I did this because it was 2016 and I was concerned about the stability of HA - so paranoia really. I since installed the addon, but have never moved everything across.

The main down-side of having it separate is keeping it (and the OS) up-to-date is slightly harder. I keep thinking there are up-sides, but when I think it through, they’re imaginary. The only real one is you can run more than one, whereas you can only have one addon. So I have a separate NR instance that is unrelated to HA, and another for testing stuff, along with the one where my automations live. But really only because I can.

But the real message is - don’t use VirtualBox, use Proxmox.

5

Thanks Michael. I appreciate your reply.

For the near-term, I’m stuck with Virtualbox since this will be running on the same win10Pro system that is also running HomeSeer HS4. That being said, I already have an NR instance as well as MQTT, InfluxDB, and Grafana running on a separate system, so I’m just going to utilize that for now until I can acquire some new hardware that is Proxmox capable.

One thing, have you had any issues with USB devices with Proxmox?

6

I’ve been running HA under Proxmox for several years now and have never experienced any issues with USB devices. My Z-Wave USB controller works just fine.

7

Thanks for confirming. For those reading this later the official name is “Proxmox USB Passthrough” which allows USB devices to be connected directly to a VM.

8

My two cents, ditch VB and use Vmware Workstation. A bit harder to install, but much more reliable as VB (which has a lot of ram/cpu issues every time I tried to run it)

PS: Workstation is nowadays free to run for personal use :grin:

9

Thanks for the input. TBH, I’m very comfortable with Virtualbox so I’m going to go with that for the short-term. Long-term it appears that Proxmox is the way to go for me but it will likely be a few months out before I get the new hardware.