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openHABian

openHABian - Hassle-free openHAB Setup

You just discovered openHAB and now you are eager to start but you're afraid of setting up a standalone system for it?

openHABian is here to help.

[[toc]]

Features

openHABian is a self-configuring Linux system setup to reliably operate your openHAB instance 24 hours a day.

A fresh install provides:

  • Complete SD-card images pre-configured with openHAB for the Raspberry Pi line of small single-board computers
  • The openHABian configuration tool to set up and configure openHAB and many related things on any Debian based system
  • Fully automated hassle-free setup without a need for a display or keyboard, connected via Ethernet or Wi-Fi (see networking)
  • Samba file sharing pre-configured ready to use shares
  • ZRAM to reduce wear on SD cards

With many more optional features available in the openhabian-config menu.

openHABian-config menu

Getting Started with openHABian

openHABian is for starters and expert users. openHABian provides a solid base for openHAB and can be configured in any number of ways after the initial install. We suggest that users keep the packages on the system all openHAB related, this will help keep the system as stable as possible.

This advice works well with the idea of a single board computer (SBC) as they are meant to cheap and affordable to be used for a single purpose. Therefore our recommendation is to dedicate a single system (typically a Raspberry Pi) to your openHAB instance and any related software.

With that being said, we can't and won't stop you from doing whatever you want, but don't say we didn't warn you.

Hardware

Hardware Recommendation

Our current recommendation is to get a Raspberry Pi model 4 or 5 with 2 or 4 GB of RAM, whatever you can get for a good price. Older RPi models (or models with less RAM) can be sufficient to run a smallish openHAB setup. Please note that running 64bit mode on RPi's with only 1 GB of RAM tends not to work super well.

You will need an SD card to go along with your Raspberry Pi, SD cards labelled "Endurance" are best for openHABian. Cards labelled "Endurance" can handle more write cycles and will typically last longer for openHAB's use conditions.

Ideally you should purchase two SD cards, and a USB adapter for the second card so that you can make use of the SD mirroring feature. This will give you a ready to go drop in replacement in the case of any hardware issues later on.

Hardware Support

All Raspberry Pi models are supported by openHABian.

::: info Note With the upcoming openHAB 5 release, we will drop support for anything older than an RPi 3 as openHAB 5 will require a 64 bit processor. :::

openHABian can run on x86 based systems but you will need to install debian yourself. See installation on other Linux systems for directions on what to do.

All other system combinations do not have official support. We do not actively prohibit installation on any hardware, including unsupported systems, but we will not offer support for any issues you encounter.

We strongly suggest that you stay with a supported version. This will help you and those you will want to ask for help on the forum focus on a known set of issues and solutions.

32/64 Bit Image Support

Any RPi 3 or newer supports 64 bit operation. Unless you really know what you are doing and have a compelling reason to do so, stick with the 64 bit image. If you do install a 32 bit image, please note that you will be unable to upgrade to openHAB 5 in the future.

On systems with only 1 GB of RAM running the 64 bit image may cause issues as there may not be sufficient RAM. If you observe issues please consider upgrading to a model with more that 1 GB of RAM.

Networking

You need to connect your Raspberry Pi to the network by Ethernet or configure Wi-Fi settings before first boot. If you plan on using Wi-Fi see first boot configuration for how to configure those settings.

If we fail to connect to any networks on first boot, we will try to open a Wi-Fi hotspot that will allow you to connect your Raspberry Pi to Wi-Fi from another device. The hotspot is temporary and will close once the Wi-Fi connects successfully. If connection fails the hotspot will return for you to try again.

Wi-Fi Hotspot

When your openHABian box does not get Internet connectivity through either Ethernet or Wi-Fi (if configured), openHABian will launch a hotspot. Use your mobile phone to scan for Wi-Fi networks, you should be seeing an new unprotected network called openHABian-<n> with <n> being a digit. Once connected, most smartphones will transfer you to a web page. If this does not happen on your mobile device, open your browser on the mobile and point it at http://raspberrypi.local. 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 submit it be aware that as soon as you do, the system will immediately stop the hotspot and attempt to connect to the specified network. As such your browser will be unable to provide any indication of if the operation succeeded.

Try to ping the new system's hostname (default is openhabian) or check DHCP on your router to see if your openHABian system appeared there. You can use sudo comitup-cli inside openHABian to change networks and eventually remove network credentials.

Note that the hotspot will remain on standby and will show up again every time your wlan0 interface is losing connectivity. For more information on the hotspot functions see comitup documentation. Most behavior can be tweaked by setting parameters (such as a default password) in /etc/comitup.conf. The hotspot feature is known to work on RPi3 and newer but can expose problems when used with USB Wi-Fi adapters.

Installation on Raspberry Pi Systems

Flash, plug, wait, enjoy:

The provided image is based on Raspberry Pi OS Lite (previously called Raspbian). openHABian is designed as a headless system, you will not need a display or a keyboard. On first boot, the system will set up openHAB, its tools and settings. Packages will be downloaded and configured in their newest version. The whole process will take some time and if all goes well openHAB will be setup and ready to go without needing any additional configuration.

Installation:

  • Make sure you meet the hardware prerequisites first
  • Write the image to your SD card
    • Use the official Raspberry Pi Imager select: 'Other specific-purpose OS -> Home assistants and home automation -> openHAB'
    • Alternatively download the latest release from here and flash using a tool like Etcher
  • Change any settings you want (see first boot configuration)
  • Insert the SD card into your Raspberry Pi
  • Prepare whatever networking you need (see networking)
  • Power on and wait approximately 10-30 minutes for openHABian to do its magic
    • You can watch the install progress in your browser at http://openhabian:81 or whatever your IP address is if the hostname does not work
    • If for whatever reason networking does not work, openHABian will launch a hotspot
  • Connect to the openHAB UI at http://openhabian:8080 and make your home smart
  • If you encounter any issues, see troubleshooting

When openHABian has installed and configured your openHAB system, you can start to use it right away.

Installation on Other Linux Systems

You can install openHABian on x86 hardware on top of an existing Debian installation. Please note that the install process is tailored to work for RPi systems. We cannot test systems outside of RPis upfront so there may be some issues we cannot anticipate that come up.

Although the core parts of openHABian were reported to work on Ubuntu, it is not supported and untested. If you try and fail, please help and drop us a note on GitHub with debug log enabled, see troubleshooting.

Start with a fresh installation of Debian, login and run:

# start shell as root user
sudo bash

# 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 openHAB https://github.com/openhab/openhabian.git /opt/openhabian
ln -s /opt/openhabian/openhabian-setup.sh /usr/local/bin/openhabian-config
cp /opt/openhabian/build-image/openhabian.conf /etc/openhabian.conf

Edit /etc/openhabian.conf to match your needs (see first boot configuration). To start the openHABian setup process run:

openhabian-config unattended

When openHABian has installed and configured your openHAB system, you can start to use it right away.

Failed Installs

openHABian install failed

If you see something like this image when you try to log in, we're sorry! We hoped this would never happen, please jump over to openHABian Troubleshooting and start there for next steps.

Going further with openHABian

openHABian Configuration Tool

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

::: tip Hint sudo executes a command with elevated rights and will hence ask for your password. The default password is openhabian. :::

sudo openhabian-config

openHABian-config menu

The configuration tool is the heart and center of openHABian.

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.

Settings to Adjust

We try to setup everything for you so that you don't have to do any additional configuration if you don't want to, however there are a couple things that sometimes don't quite work so it is always good to double check them:

  • Timezone: Your timezone is typically set by your network, but if it appears to be the wrong time you can use menu option 33 to set it manually.
  • Language: By default we set the locale setting to en_US.UTF8 as this tends to be the best for error messages, it can be changed using menu option 32.
  • Passwords: You should change the default password using menu option 34.
Default Passwords

For reference, the default username and passwords are as follows:

  • Main user (e.g. ssh or sudo): openhabian:openhabian
  • Samba share: openhabian:openhabian
  • openHAB remote console: openhab:habopen

Actually Using openHAB

By this point, you should already have a fully functional openHAB setup running on your system. See Getting Started - First Steps for what to do next with openHAB.

First Steps with Linux

You may be thinking that this computer is a little different than your typical desktop machine. That is because this machine runs on Linux, if you want more information on how to do things on a headless Linux system check out some of the resources linked below.

Additional Optional Components

There are a number of additional tools included with openHABian to enable additional functionality that can be installed. Each of these are included as a part of openhabian-config menu option 20.

First boot configuration

Many settings are configurable prior to the first boot of openHABian by changing the key value pairs in the /boot/openhabian.conf file on the SD card once you have flashed the initial image onto it.

The openHABian configuration file uses key value pairs, essentially a list of option=value settings in a plain text file. All supported options are already in the file but unused options and optional components are commented out by default. Comments are defined by a # followed by a space, so any line you want to be ignored needs to start with a # (yes the space is important).

If you don't know what an option does, probably don't change it as the default options are usually best.

The available options combined with examples are listed below for convenience:

System Configuration

hostname

Set a custom hostname for the system.

::: details Example

hostname="openhabian"

:::

username

Set a custom primary username for the system.

::: details Example

username="openhabian"

:::

adminkeyurl

Download a public SSH key from a given URL and authorize the owner of the key to login as the admin user (i.e. the user configured by username).

::: details Example

adminkeyurl="https://example.com/mysshkey.pub"

:::

timezone

Timezone to set the system to. Typically should be set to your current timezone following the "Region/City" general format, see the Debian documentation for more information.

::: details Example

timezone="America/Denver"

:::

locales

Set the locales to install for your machine in a space separated list (i.e. the languages to install on system). See the Debian documentation for more information.

::: details Example

locales="en_US.UTF-8 de_DE.UTF-8"

:::

system_default_locale

Set the default locale for the system. See the Debian documentation for more information.

::: details Example

system_default_locale="en_US.UTF-8"

:::

ipv6

Enable or disable IPv6 support on your system.

::: details Example

ipv6="enable"

:::

framebuffer

Enable or disable the Raspberry Pi framebuffer.

::: details Example

framebuffer="enable"

:::

Wi-Fi Settings

wifi_ssid

Just the name of your Wi-Fi network that you want to connect to.

::: details Example

wifi_ssid="myWifiNetwork"

:::

wifi_password

The password for your Wi-Fi network.

::: details Example

wifi_password="mySuperSecretPassword"

:::

wifi_country

The two letter country code for your current location. Set this according to your current location or you may risk violating regulatory restrctions.

::: details Example

wifi_country="US"

:::

openHABian Settings

repositoryurl

The repository to clone openHABian from. This is typically only used by developers to test changes.

::: details Example

repositoryurl="https://github.com/openhab/openhabian.git"

:::

clonebranch

The branch of the repository to use for openHABian.

::: details Example

clonebranch="openHAB"

initialconfig

An initial configuration file to import when setting up openHAB. This file must be a .zip archive created by openhab-cli backup.

::: details Example

initialconfig="/boot/initial.zip"

:::

debugmode

Debug log level for openHABian, valid options are: off, on (verbose output in log), or maximum (show every command in log).

::: details Example

debugmode="off"

:::

apttimeout

APT timeout to wait for lock when multiple install actions are going on.

::: details Example

apttimeout="60"

:::

java_opt

Java version to install, valid options are: 17, Zulu21-64, or BellSoft21.

::: details Example

java_opt="17"

:::

Fake Hardware

hw

Force treating your installation as if it was a specific type of hardware.

::: details Valid Options

  • pi5
  • pi4
  • pi4_8gb
  • cm4
  • pi400
  • pi3
  • cm3
  • pi3+
  • cm3+
  • pi2
  • pi1
  • cm1
  • pi0
  • pi0w
  • pi0w2
  • x86 :::

::: details Example

hw="pi5"

:::

hwarch

Force treating your installation as if it was a specific architecture.

::: details Valid Options

  • x86_64
  • amd64
  • armv6l
  • armv7l
  • aarch64
  • arm64 :::

::: details Example

hwarch="x86_64"

:::

osrelease

Force treating your installation as if it was a specific OS release.

::: details Valid Options

  • raspios
  • raspbian
  • debian
  • ubuntu
  • stretch
  • buster
  • bullseye
  • bookworm
  • bionic
  • focal :::

::: details Example

osrelease="raspios"

:::

Other Settings

zraminstall

Enable or disable ZRAM installation.

::: details Example

zraminstall="enable"

:::

hotspot

Enable or disable hotspot support when internet is not reachable.

::: details Example

hotspot="enable"

:::

hotspotpw

Password to connect to the hotspot when internet is not reachable.

::: details Example

hotspotpw="openhabian"

:::

Backup Settings

backupdrive

Storage device to configure for backup.

::: details Example

backupdrive="/dev/sda"

:::

storageconfig

Name of the backup configuration to configure for openHAB.

::: details Example

storageconfig="openhab-dir"

:::

storagedir

Directory to mount the storage device to.

::: details Example

storagedir="/storage"

:::

storagetapes

The number of Amanda storage tapes to configure for the backup.

::: details Example

storagetapes="15"

:::

storagecapacity

The capacity of Amanda storage tapes to configure for the backup.

::: details Example

storagecapacity="1024"

:::

Mail Relay Settings

adminmail

Mail account to use for the admin account.

::: details Example

adminmail="[email protected]"

:::

relayuser

User account to use for the from address.

::: details Example

relayuser="[email protected]"

:::

relaypass

Password to authenticate with the relay service.

::: details Example

relaypass="mySuperSecretPassword"

:::

smarthost

Host of the mail relay service.

::: details Example

smarthost="smtp.gmail.com"

:::

smartport

Port to connect to the mail relay service.

::: details Example

smartport="587"

:::

Tailscale Settings

preauthkey

A pre-configured key to connect to your tailscale network.

::: details Example

preauthkey="tskey-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

:::

tstags

Tags for the machine corresponding to the tailscale network.

::: details Example

tstags="tag:client"

:::