openHAB

This page is part of archived documentation for openHAB 2.5. Go to the current stable version

TL;DR

Jump to install instructions. But read the full docs before you ask for help !

# openHABian - Hassle-free openHAB Setup

The Raspberry Pi and other small single-board computers are quite famous platforms for openHAB. However, setting up a fully working Linux system with all recommended packages and openHAB recommendations is a boring task, takes a lot of time and Linux newcomers shouldn't need to worry about technical details like these.

A home automation enthusiast doesn't have to be a Linux enthusiast!

openHABian aims to provide a self-configuring Linux system setup specific to the needs of every openHAB user. It provides:

  • complete SD-card images pre-configured with openHAB for the Raspberry Pi line of SBCs
  • The openHABian configuration tool to set up and configure openHAB and many related things on any Debian based system

# Table of Contents

# Features

Out of the box, the openHABian image provides

The included openHABian Configuration Tool openhabian-config provides the following optional settings and components:

openHABian-config menu

  • Switch openHAB versions 2 vs 3 and select the latest Release, Milestone or Snapshot unstable/SNAPSHOT build (opens new window) version
  • Install and Setup a reverse proxy with password authentication and/or HTTPS access (incl. Let's Encrypt (opens new window) certificate) for self-controlled remote access
  • manually set up a WiFi connection
  • Setup Backup for your system
  • Easily install and preconfigure Optional Components of your choice
  • configure Raspberry Pi specific functions
    • Prepare the serial port for the use with extension boards like RaZberry, Enocean Pi, ...
    • Use ZRAM to mitigate SD card wearout due to excessive writes
    • Move the system partition to an external USB stick or drive ... and much more

# Hardware

# Hardware recommendation

Let's put this first: our current recommendation is to get a RPi 4 with 2 or 4 GB, a 3 A power supply and a 16 GB SD card. Also get another 32 GB or larger SD card and a USB card reader to make use of the "auto backup" feature.

ATTENTION

Avoid getting the 8 GB model of RPi 4. 8 GB are a waste of money and it has issues, you must disable ZRAM (opens new window) or use the 64bit image (untested).

# Hardware and OS support

As of openHABian version 1.6 and later, all Raspberry Pi models are supported as hardware. Anything x86 based may work or not. Anything else ARM based such as ODroids, OrangePis and the like may work or not. NAS servers such as QNAP and Synology boxes will not work. Support for PINEA64 was dropped in this current release.
We strongly recommend that users choose Raspberry Pi 2, 3 or 4 systems to have 1 GB of RAM or more. RPi 1 and 0/0W only have a single CPU core and 512 MB. This can be sufficient to run a smallish openHAB setup, but it will not be enough to run a full-blown system with many bindings and memory consuming openHABian features/components such as ZRAM, InfluxDB or Grafana. We do not actively prohibit installation on any hardware, including unsupported systems, but we might skip or deny to install specific extensions such as those memory hungry applications named above.

Supporting hardware means testing every single patch and every release. There are simply too many combinations of SBCs, peripherals and OS flavors that maintainers do not have available, or, even if they did, the time to spend on the testing efforts that is required to make openHABian a reliable system. Let's make sure you understand the implications of these statements: it means that to run on hardware other than RPi 2/3/4 or (bare metal i.e. not virtualized) x86 may work but this is not supported.

It may work to install and run openHABian on unsupported hardware. If it does not, you are welcome to find out what's missing and contribute it back to the community with a Pull Request. It is sometimes simple things like a naming string. We'll be happy to include that in openHABian so you can use your box with openHABian unless there's a valid reason to change or remove it. However, that does not make your box a "supported" one as we don't have it available for our further development and testing. So there remains a risk that future openHABian releases will fail to work on your SBC because we changed a thing that broke support for your HW - unintentionally so however inevitable.

For ARM hardware that we don't support, you can try any of the fake hardware parameters to 'simulate' RPi hardware and Raspi OS. If that still doesn't work for you, give Ubuntu (opens new window) or ARMbian (opens new window) a try.

Going beyond what the RPi image provides, as a manually installed set of scripts, we support running openHABian on x86 hardware on generic Debian. On ARM, we only support Raspberry Pi OS. These are what we develop and test openHABian against. We do not actively support Ubuntu so no promises but we provide code "as-is" that is known to run on there. Several optional components though, such as WireGuard or Homegear, are known to expose problems.

We expect you to use the current stable distribution, 'buster' for Raspberry Pi OS (ARM) and Debian (x86) and 'focal' for Ubuntu (x86) this is. To install openHABian on anything older or newer may work or not. If you encounter issues, you may need to upgrade first or to live with the consequences of running an OS on the edge of software development.

Either way, please note that you're on your own when it comes to configuring and installing the HW with the proper OS yourself.

# 64 bit ?

RPi3 and 4 have a 64 bit processor and you may want to run openHAB in 64 bit. We provide a 64bit version of the image but it is unsupported so use it at your own risk. Please don't ask for support if it does not work for you. It's just provided as-is. Be aware that to run in 64 bit has a major drawback: increased memory usage. That is not a good idea on a heavily memory constrained platform like a RPi. Also remember openHABian makes use of Raspberry Pi OS which as per today still is a 32 bit OS. We are closely observing development and will adapt openHABian once it will reliably work on 64 bit.

On x86 hardware, 64 bit is the standard.

# Raspberry Pi prepackaged SD card image

Flash, plug, wait, enjoy: The provided image is based on the Raspberry Pi OS Lite (opens new window) (previously called Raspbian) standard system. On first boot, the system will set up openHAB and the mentioned settings and tools. All packages will be downloaded in their newest version and configured to work without further modifications. The whole process will take a few minutes, then openHAB and all other needed tools to get started will be ready to use without further configuration steps. openHABian is designed as a headless system, you will not need a display or a keyboard.

WARNING

Make sure to follow these instructions and especially set the correct clonebranch, otherwise you will end up with an openHAB 3 installation instead of openHAB 2

Setup:

You can stop reading now, openHABian has installed and configured your openHAB system and you can start to use it right away. If you want to get in touch with the system or want to install one of the previously mentioned optional features, come back here later.

Ready for more? Connect to your Raspberry Pi SSH console (opens new window) using the username openhabian and password openhabian. You will see the following welcome screen:

openHABian login screen

➜ Continue at the "openHABian Configuration Tool" chapter below!

# Other Linux Systems (add openHABian just like any other software)

Going beyond what the RPi image provides, you can also openHABian on x86 hardware on top of any existing Debian installation. Please note that the unattended install is tailored to work for Raspberries. We cannot test HW/OS combos beyond RPis upfront so there is no promise for this work. See the Hardware and OS section for details on supported hardware and OSs before you proceed. Note that although the core parts of openHABian were reported to work on there, Ubuntu is not supported and untested. If you try and fail, please help and drop us a note on Github with debug log enabled, see DEBUG guide.

Start with a fresh installation of your operating system, login and run

# start shell as root user
sudo bash

then start installation

# install git - you can skip this if it's already installed
apt-get update
apt-get install git

# download, link and create config file
git clone -b openHAB3 https://github.com/openhab/openhabian.git /opt/openhabian
ln -s /opt/openhabian/openhabian-setup.sh /usr/local/bin/openhabian-config
cp /opt/openhabian/openhabian.conf.dist /etc/openhabian.conf

Edit /etc/openhabian.conf to match your needs, then finally use

openhabian-config unattended

to install.

# Interactive install on generic x86 Linux

We strongly recommend you to use the automated install but you actually can walk through the interactive tool. Start openhabian-config. Get the bare minimum you will need installed by selecting menu option 03. To install the recommended components that automated install will get in one go select menu options 33, 32, 31, 11, 12, 15, Zulu 11 OpenJDK 64-bit (in menu 4X), 13, 16, 14, 21, 38, 53, 52. We try to make install options independent of each other but there may be dependencies we are not aware of left so any other order may or may not work.

➜ Continue at the "openHABian Configuration Tool" chapter below

# openHABian Configuration Tool

The following instructions are developed for a Raspberry Pi but should be applicable to all hardware / all openHABian environments. Once connected to the command line console of your system, please execute the openHABian configuration tool by typing the following command:

(Hint: sudo executes a command with elevated rights and will hence ask for your password: openhabian).

sudo openhabian-config

openHABian-config menu

The configuration tool is the heart of openHABian. It is not only a menu with a set of options, it's also used in a special unattended mode to automate the setup run, either as part of the RPi image or in a manual install run.

⌨ - A quick note on menu navigation. Use the cursor keys to navigate, Enter to execute, Space to select and Tab to jump to the actions on the bottom of the screen. Press Esc twice to exit the configuration tool.

# Linux Hints

Many helpful articles can be found on the internet, for example:

The good news: openHABian helps you to stay away from Linux - The bad news: not for long...

Regardless of if you want to copy some files or are on the search for a solution to a problem, sooner or later you'll have to know some Linux. Take a few minutes to study the above Tutorials and get to know the most basic commands and tools to be able to navigate on your Linux system, edit configurations, check the system state or look at log files. It's not complicated and something that doesn't hurt on one's résumé.

# First steps with openHAB

After your first setup of openHABian is successful and you are able to access the openHAB dashboard, you should dig into the possibilites. Install Bindings (opens new window), discover your devices, and configure your smart home (opens new window). You might want to start defining Items (opens new window), Sitemap (opens new window) and HABPanel (opens new window) dashboard for your home, but these are just some first hints. Be sure to read up on the Configuration (opens new window) section of the documentation pages to learn more.

# Further configuration steps

openHABian is supposed to provide a ready-to-use openHAB base system. There are a few things, however, we need you to decide and act on right now at the beginning:

  • Delayed Rules loading openHAB startup times can be annoyingly long. There's an optimization available that delays loading the rules. It quickly renames rules forth and back after 2 minutes, effectively speeding up openHAB startup. This is setup by default, you can disable this via [menu option: 44].
  • Timezone: The time zone of your openHABian system will be determined based on your internet connection. In some cases you might have to adjust that setting.
  • Language: The locale setting of the openHABian base system is set to "en_US.UTF-8". While this setting will not do any harm, you might prefer e.g. console errors in German or Spanish. Change the locale settings accordingly. Be aware, that error solving might be easier when using the English error messages as search phrases.
  • Passwords: Relying on default passwords is a security concern you should care about! The openHABian system is preconfigured with a few passwords you should change to ensure the security of your system. This is especially important if your system is accessible from outside your private subnet.

All of these settings can be changed via the openHABian configuration tool.

Here are the passwords in question with their respective default "username:password" values. They can be changed from openHABian menu.

# Passwords

  • User password needed for SSH or sudo (e.g. "openhabian:openhabian")
  • Samba share password (e.g. "openhabian:openhabian")
  • openHAB remote console (e.g. "openhab:habopen")
  • Amanda backup password (no default, applied when installing)
  • Nginx reverse proxy login (no default, applied when installing) For manual configuration see here (opens new window).
  • InfluxDB (No password set by default)
  • Grafana visualization ("admin:admin")

# Availability and Backup

openHAB is designed to reliably run 24 hours a day, seven days a week - and so should be your server. This is the right time to prepare your system for disasters such as getting hit by the SD card wearout/corruption problem which is quite common among users of single board computers such as Raspberry Pis. openHABian has a number of features built in to enhance resilience:

  1. the ZRAM feature moves write intensive parts of openHABian into RAM to mitigate the risk of SD card corruption. See community thread (opens new window) for more up to date information. WARNING: power failure will result in some data to get lost (albeit the system should continue to run). Get an UPS. ZRAM is enabled by default for swap, logs and persistence data. You can toggle use in [menu option 38].
  2. Move the root filesystem to USB-attached memory. WARNING: USB sticks are as susceptible to flash wearout as SD cards are, making ZRAM the better choice for a standard Pi to run off its internal SD card. But you can use this option to migrate your system to a safe medium such as an SSD or HDD. [menu option 37]
  3. Use the openHAB integrated openhab-cli tool (opens new window) to interactively backup/restore your openHAB config [menu option 50/51].
  4. Use Amanda Network Backup (opens new window) for full system backups, documentation here (opens new window). [menu option 52]

Standard openHABian install enables ZRAM by default (#1). Once you attach a safe external medium to your system (such as an SSD), you can disable ZRAM (#1) and move the system over using menu options 37 (#2). Finally, we strongly suggest you install Amanda (#4) right after you finish your setup. Amanda is to take care to backup the whole system to be able to quickly restore it when in need. This is not done by default because it requires a number of user inputs, but you should not skip it for your own safety !

Delayed rules load will be enabled by default in openHAB 2 but disabled in openHAB 3 (which has a new startlevel system). This function will rename the rules files so they get ignored by the starting openHAB instance, then after 2 minutes they're renamed back. You can toggle to use this feature in menu option 44.

# Setup notes

# On openHAB3

Starting with its general release, openHABian will install openHAB 3 by default. There's some big changes also to openHABian such as to install Java 11 and to use changed file and directory names. Most directory names ... /openhab2/ ... will become ... /openhab/ ... (NOTE: not openhab3) plus there's changes in a number of places, often subtle ones like the name of Samba export shares to change. As openHABian users will be running openHAB 2.X by the time 3.0 gets released, openhabian-config offers to migrate the openHABian environment and install openHAB3 for you. Menu option 42 will do the upgrade. Be aware that it isn't the universal answer to all your migration needs - there is ONLY an openHAB upgrade path. You cannot downgrade from OH3 to OH2.

No downgrades

Take an openHAB config backup BEFORE you upgrade from openHAB v2 to v3. You should also take a system level backup !

Menu option 42 can also do the downgrade and change the environment back to match openHAB 2 BUT it'll ONLY exchange the binary packages. There is no migration to change your configuration back to a OH2 compatible one. So it is essential that you take a backup before you upgrade. You will have to restore your setup from that backup after a downgrade using menu option 51 or by manually using openhab-cli restore <archive file>. Note option 42 will also not downgrade Java. openHAB 2 however is known to run with Zulu Java 11 as well.

# openhabian.conf

You can actually set a number of parameters before you run an unattended installation. This applies to the RPi image on an SD card as well as to a manual installation. You can also try with a different set of parameters if your initial attempt fails:

  • Flash the system image to your micro SD card as described, do not remove the SD card yet
  • Access the first SD card partition. It's a vfat/FAT-32 (Windows) filesystem so just use the file explorer of your client PC.
  • Open the file openhabian.conf in a text editor
  • Uncomment and complete the lines to contain the parameters you want to set
  • Save, unmount/eject, remove and insert into the RPi and boot it
  • Continue with the instructions for your hardware

Mind the comments for each configuration parameter. Browse the next documentation section for more explanations.

# Administration user

Raspberry Pi OS images include a Linux user (pi) that you can use for openHAB administration. openHABian renames the user to what you specify in the username parameter and assigns the userpw password first, then it proceeds and makes various settings that are either useful (such as some aliases) or required to run openHAB. You can also make use of this if you don't use the image but unattended installation on non-RPi hardware, openHABian will then create that user for you if it does not yet exist.

# admin key

Make the adminkeyurl point to an URL to contain a public SSH key. This will be included with your administration user's .ssh/authorized_keys and the openHAB console so the admin user (yourself, usually) can login after installation.

# WiFi based setup notes

If you own a RPi3, RPi3+, RPi4, a RPi0W or any other model with a compatible WiFi dongle you can set up and use openHABian via WiFi only. For the WiFi based setup to work, you'll need to make your SSID and password known to the system before the first boot. So in addition to the setup instructions given above, uncomment and complete the lines reading wifi_ssid="" and wifi_psk="" in openhabian.conf.

# WiFi Hotspot

Whenever the WiFi interface wlan0 exists but does not have connectivity, openHABian will launch a Hotspot. When you use your mobile phone to scan for WiFi networks, you should be seeing a new network called openHABian-<n>. Connecting will work without a password. Once connected, open your browser and point it at http://raspberrypi.local or http://comitup-<n>. This may or may not work for your mobile browser as it requires Bonjour/ZeroConf abilities. If you cannot connect to this address, go to http://10.41.0.1. On that page you can select the SSID of the network you want to connect your system to. Provide the password and press the button. Note that as soon as you do, the wlan0 IP address changes so your mobile browser will not be able to provide you any feedback if that worked out. Try to ping the new system's hostname (default is openHABianDevice) or check DHCP on your router if your openHABian system appeared there. For more information on this feature see comitup-cli (opens new window). You can use sudo comitup-cli inside openHABian to change networks and eventually remove network credentials. Note the hotspot may not only become available during installation: it will remain on standby and will show up again every time your wlan0 interface is losing connectivity. The hotspot feature is known to work on RPi 0W, 3 and 4 but is known to often expose problems with WiFi USB adapters.

# Disable ZRAM

ZRAM is activated by default on fresh installations on ARM hardware except on a 8GB RPi4 as that is known to be incompatible at the time of writing, leading to kernel crashes. If you want to disable ZRAM for a different reason, use zraminstall=disable in openhabian.conf to install without.

# Debug mode

See Troubleshooting section if you run into trouble installing. If you want to turn on debug mode, edit openhabian.conf and set the debugmode= parameter to either off, on or maximum. Mind you that if you intend to open an issue, we need you to provide the output of debugmode=maximum so if you're in interactive mode, set your terminal to record output.

# Auto-backup

You might want to setup openHABian to automatically backup and mirror your internal SD card to an external unit. We suggest to use another SD card in an external card writer device so that in case your internal SD card fails, you can switch SD cards to get the system back up running fast. Note most "16GB" cards are not exactly 16 GB and your new one mustn't have less bytes than the old one so openHABian enforces the second card to have at least twice the size of your internal card. We make use of that extra space as storage for the backup system.

To setup right at installation time: Define backupdrive=/dev/sdX (replace X with the proper character) to enable this functionality right during unattended installation. Eventually change storagedir=/storage to any other name. The first attached disk type device is usually called /dev/sda. openHABian will create partitions 1 and 2 to be mirrors of your internal card and will assign the remaining space to a storage partition. Full mirroring will take place semiannually and for the 2nd partition (Linux root), changes will be synced once a week. See systemctl list-timers, timers are defined in /etc/systemd/system/sd*.timer. The unattended install routine will also setup Amanda to take daily backups and store them to that third partition. Use storagecapacity=xxx to override how much space to consume at most for Amanda backup storage (in MB). If you choose to skip this during system installation, you can still setup both, mirroring and Amanda, at any later time using the 5X menu options.

Menu 5X provides interactive access to the aforementioned functions: 53 Setup SD monitoring prepares the partitions on an SD card and sets up timers to execute both, a full mirroring and complementary rsync 'diff' runs in a backup schedule. 54 Raw copy SD is a one-time raw copy (mirror) run. 55 Sync SD proagates (syncs) differences from your main SD card to your external card.

Should you need to switch over to your backup card, get a another new SD card to match the size of the broken card and use menu option 54 to copy your active backup card back to the new one and switch cards back as soon as possible.

# Tailscale VPN network

Tailscale is a management toolset to establish a WireGuard based VPN between multiple systems if you want to connect to openHAB(ian) instances outside your LAN over Internet. It'll take care to detect and open ports when you and your peers are located behind firewalls. Download the client (opens new window) and eventually get the Solo service plan from Tailscale, that's free for private use. This free service will automatically be selected when you fire up your first VPN node. The Windows client has a link to the admin console where you can create pre-auth one-time keys. These you can put as the preauthkey into openhabian.conf to automatically deploy remote openHABian nodes (unattended install) and have them join the VPN.

# IPv6 notes

You might encounter problems when you make use of IPv6 on some networks and systems. openHABian installation may stop or hang forever. In that case or if you are sure that you do not need IPv6 on your openHABian server, you can disable IPv6. Follow the instructions in the previous section and insert a line into openhabian.conf reading ipv6=disable.

# Fake hardware mode

If to install openHABian fails because you have a non-supported hardware or run an unsupported OS release, you can "fake" your hardware and OS to make openHABian behave as if you did own that HW/OS. In openhabian.conf, uncomment and complete the lines reading hw=, hwarch= and/or osrelease= with the hw and os versions you want to attempt installation with.

# Optional Components

openHABian comes with a number of additional routines to quickly install and set up home automation related software. You'll find all of these in the openHABian Configuration Tool

# Troubleshooting

If you're having problems to get openHABian to install properly, check out the debug guide. It's also available on your system as /opt/openhabian/docs/openhabian-DEBUG.md. Do not hesitate to ask for help on the openHABian community forum (opens new window) when the debug guide doesn't help. Remember to mind the rules (opens new window) please.

If you want to get involved, you found a bug, or just want to see what's planned for the future, visit us on GitHub:

# Where can I find a changelog for openHABian?

Official announcements are co-located with the download links here (opens new window). If you want to stay in touch with all the latest code changes under the hood, see commit history (opens new window) for openHABian. You'll also see commits "fly by" when executing the "Update" function within the openHABian Configuration Tool.

# Did my Installation succeed? What to do in case of a problem?

Don't panic 😉 openHABian setup will take 15 up to 45 minutes to complete all steps, depending on your device's performance and a number of external factors such as your internet connection.

Watch the progress on the console or the web interface at https:/// or http://openhabiandevice/ (opens new window) if that name has become available. Double-check the IP address and name with your router while you wait. If there is absolutely no output for more than 10 minutes, your installation has failed in the first initialization phase. There probably is a problem with the way your router or local network are setup. Read on in the Troubleshooting section or move on to the DEBUG guide. You can set debugmode=on (or even = maximum) right on first install, too, to get to see what openHABian is doing.

After a few minutes of boot up time, you can connect to the SSH console (opens new window) of your device. During the setup process you'll be redirected to the live progress report of the setup (you can Ctrl-C to get into the shell). The report can also be checked for errors at any time, see /boot/first-boot.log

The progress of a successful installation will look like this:

openHABian installation log

Wait till the log tells you that the setup was "successful", then reconnect to the device.

# SSH Login Screen

If the installation was successful you will see the normal login screen as shown in the first screenshot. If the installation was not successful you will see a warning and further instructions as shown in the second screenshot.

openHABian installation successful
openHABian installation failed warning and instructions

# openHAB Dashboard

After the installation of openHABian was successful, you should be able to access the openHAB dashboard:

# What's next?

If you are not able to access your system via the openHAB dashboard or SSH after more than one hour, chances are high that your hardware setup is the problem. Consult the debug guide and move on from there.

# Can I switch openHAB 2 and 3 via openHABian branches ?

openHABian installs the latest stable build of openHAB. The standard openHABian stable and master branches will install openHAB version 2 and the openHAB3 branch will install the new openHAB version 3. You can migrate between versions by selecting the corresponding 4X menu option. That should also result in an openHABian branch change. If you want to choose from stable, snapshot or milestone releases, please do so via openhabian-config tool (also menu 4X). Note this will not result in any openHABian branch change. Switching from stable to newer development releases might introduce changes and incompatibilities, so please be sure to make a full openHAB backup first! Check the Linux installation article for all needed details: Linux: Changing Versions

# Where is the graphical user interface?

I've just installed openHABian and now I'm confused. No fancy login screen, no windows, no mouse support. What did I get into?

You are not the first one to get confused about the intended use case of openHABian. Maybe it helps to not think of the RPi as a PC as we know it. An RPi is not (well, not necessarily) to be used with a keyboard and display. Its intended use case is to sit in a corner and provide a service reliably 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You already own a powerful PC or Mac to work on. It would be a shame to have a powerful computer at your fingertips and then have to restrict yourself to a very limited graphical frontend on another device, wouldn't you agree?

What we actually want openHABian to be is a dedicated, headless system to reliably run openHAB and to expose all interfaces needed to interact and configure it (MainUI, HABPanel, openHAB LogViewer, Samba Network Shares, openHABian Configuration Tool, SSH, you-name-it). If you know how to work with these interfaces, you are set for a way better experience than the alternatives. The main challenge is to get used to the Linux command line, not even a GUI (like Pixel, see below) will relieve you from that in the long run. If you are not willing to teach yourself a few fundamental Linux skills you will not become happy with any Linux system and should resort to a e.g. Windows machine. However as you are willing to tinker with smart home technology, I'm sure you are ready to teach yourself new stuff and expand your experience.

# Can I use openHABian on ...?

See the README (opens new window) for a list of supported HW and OS. openHABian is developed for Debian based systems. If your operating system is based on these or if your hardware supports one, your chances are high openHABian can be used. Check out the Manual Setup instructions for guidance and consult the debug guide if you run into problems. Do not hesitate to ask for help on the openHABian community forum (opens new window) !

Caught a mistake or want to contribute to the documentation? Edit this page on GitHub (opens new window)

← Raspberry Pi →