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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 taking quite some time and Linux newcomers shouldn't worry about these technical details.

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. To that end, the project provides two things:

  • Complete SD-card images pre-configured with openHAB and many other openHAB- and Hardware-specific preparations for the Raspberry Pi
  • The openHABian Configuration Tool to set up and configure openHAB and many related things on any Debian based system

Table of Contents

{::options toc_levels="2..3"/}

  • TOC {:toc}

Features

The following features are provided by the openHABian image out of the box:

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

openHABian-config menu

  • Switch over to the latest Milestone or Snapshot release of openHAB 2 unstable/SNAPSHOT build
  • Install and Setup a reverse proxy with password authentication and/or HTTPS access (incl. Let's Encrypt certificate) for self-controlled remote access
  • Set up a WiFi connection
  • Bind the openHAB remote console to all interfaces
  • Setup Backup for your system
  • Easily install and preconfigure Optional Components of your choice
  • ... and many more
  • Raspberry Pi specific:
    • 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

Quick Start

FIRST, check the README if your hardware and OS are supported

Raspberry Pi (Prepackaged SD Card Image)

Flash, plug, wait, enjoy: The provided image is based on the Raspberry Pi OS Lite (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.

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 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)

openHABian is also supposed to run on generic Debian based systems on x86 and some ARM hardware platforms. 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 stable 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

Interactive Install on generic Linux

Start openhabian-config to get into the openHABian configuration tool. ➜ Continue at the "openHABian Configuration Tool" chapter below!

Unattended Install on generic Linux

BEWARE:
This install method is only for experts that already know to handle and debug openHABian. As a beginner, use the interactive openhabian-config tool !

That being said, you actually can install openHABian in an unattended mode.

To do so, edit /etc/openhabian.conf to match your needs, then use

openhabian-config unattended

to get the automated openHABian installation going.

Please note that we cannot test HW/OS combos upfront so there is no support / no guarantee for this work as explained in the README. Don't be too disappointed if you run into errors. Drop us a note on Github.

openHABian Configuration Tool

The following instructions target a Raspberry Pi openHABian setup 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.

(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, as either part of the RPi image as well as in a manual install.

⌨ - 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

If you are unfamiliar with Linux, SSH and the Linux console or if you want to improve your skills, read up on these important topics. A lot of 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, discover your devices, and configure your smart home. You might want to start defining Items, Sitemap and HABPanel dashboard for your home, but these are just some first hints. Be sure to read up on the Configuration 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].
  • Time Zone: 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 easily be changed via the openHABian Configuration Tool.

Here are the passwords in question with their respective default "username:password" values. All password 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.
  • 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 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 to interactively backup/restore your openHAB config [menu option 50/51].
  4. Use Amanda Network Backup for full system backups, documentation here. [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 your openHAB config and whole server 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 also be enabled by default. This is renaming the rules files, then after 2 minutes it renames them back. You can toggle to use this feature in menu option 44.

Setup notes

On openHAB3

openHABian will install latest stable openHAB 2 by default. To ease upgrading, openhabian-config will migrate the openHABian environment and install openHAB3 for you. There's big changes such as to install Java 11 (which is mandatory for openHAB3). openHAB3 will use a separate file /etc/default/openhab and most directory names will change from ... /openhab2/ ... to ... /openhab/ ... (NOTE: not openhab3). It's a number of places there'll be changes in, often subtle ones like the name of Samba export shares to change. Note that this code is still in BETA so with some bad luck it might mess up your system. We kindly ask you to help and report any issues on Github, including simple ones like when a title hasn't been renamed. NOTE: you need to be on the openHABian master branch for the following to work. Menu option 42 will do the upgrade. Be aware that there is ONLY an openHAB upgrade path. You cannot downgrade from OH3 to OH2. You can exchange the binary packages (which is what openHABian will do), but there is no help 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 <file>. Menu option 42 can also do the inverse and change the environment back to match openHAB 2. Note it'll NOT downgrade Java however. openHAB 2 is known to run with Zulu Java 11, though.

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 of a configuration parameter. Browse the next documentation section for further explanations.

Administration user

Raspi 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 Karaf 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="My WiFi SSID" and wifi_psk="password123" in openhabian.conf.

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.

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 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 release= 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 ! Remember to mind the rules 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?

The official changelog announcements are posted here and here, be sure to check these out for your version. If you want to stay in touch with all the latest code changes under the hood, see the commit history for openHABian. You'll also see added commits when executing the "Update" function within the openHABian Configuration Tool.

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

A note on patience: stay calm - the openHABian setup will take 15 up to 45 minutes to complete all steps. The amount of time highly depends on your device's performance and a number of external factors such as your internet connection.

Progress Report

Watch the progress on the console or the web interface at https:/// or http://openhab/ if that name has become available.

Double-check the 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.

You might want to try disabling IPv6. Read on in the Troubleshooting section or move on to the DEBUG guide.

It is also always possible to connect to the SSH console of your device (after a few minutes of boot up time). During the setup process you'll be redirected to the live progress report of the setup. The report can also be checked for errors after the installation finished by executing: cat /boot/first-boot.log

The progress of a successful installation will look similar to the following:

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 from openHAB 2 stable to the testing or unstable branch?

openHABian installs the latest stable build of openHAB 2. If you want to switch over to the snapshot or milestone release, please do so via the openHABian Configuration Tool. 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 or most other solutions based on a Raspberry Pi. 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 24/7. You already own a powerful PC or Mac which you should benefit from. 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?

Moving on. What we actually want openHABian to be is a dedicated headless system to reliably execute openHAB and to expose all interfaces needed to interact and configure it (PaperUI, BasicUI, 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.

If the above didn't convince you, execute the following commands to get the graphical user interface Pixel installed. You have been warned, if there came any warranty with openHABian to begin with, it would end here.

Can I use openHABian on ...?

See the README 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 !