HS4 Migration from Windows to Linux

[Thedude]

I have large HS4 setup with over 1,000 devices and 500 events running on Windows 10. Is it possible to migrate the whole thing to RPi 4 with 8GB of RAM and 1 TB of flash memory? Anyone have done something like that? Pros and Cons??? Thanks

[jon00]

You did not mention the number of plugins you are currently running?

Also see here: https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/3r...07#post1588507

[randy]

I have large HS4 setup with over 1,000 devices and 500 events running on Windows 10. Is it possible to migrate the whole thing to RPi 4 with 8GB of RAM and 1 TB of flash memory? Anyone have done something like that? Pros and Cons??? Thanks

My system is much larger. I moved it to a 4gb Pi 4. Some of my plug-ins will not work under Linux, but otherwise the system ran fine. The web interface was much slower, but Events processed just fine. Because of plug-ins, I abandoned the Pi, but I was pleased with how it handled my system.

[Thedude]

jon00 I'm running 8 plug-ins.

[Thedude]

My system is much larger. I moved it to a 4gb Pi 4. Some of my plug-ins will not work under Linux, but otherwise the system ran fine. The web interface was much slower, but Events processed just fine. Because of plug-ins, I abandoned the Pi, but I was pleased with how it handled my system.

I think that the size of RAM does affect the performance dramatically. For example, I tried creating a desktop computer based on RPi 4GB and I failed miserably. Web browser hardly worked and it took forever to load a web page. Things changed dramatically when I did the same with RPi 8GB version. It worked like a regular desktop with web browser and email client.

So I'm cautiously optimistic that I may have a shot at it with 8GB RPi4. I do have now HS4 running on RPi4 with 8GB RAM. Can anyone provide or refer me to step by step instructions of how to migrate from Windows 10 to RPi. Unfortunately I'm not well versed in Linux/Raspbian.

[jon00]

I have a 8GB RPi HS4 installation for testing. All I can say is that the web server is slower than both my Windows and Ubuntu install of HS4. YMMV...

[John245]

I tried to run my production system on a RPi with 8 GB, without success. The number of devices is not an issue. It will become an issue if they update every 10 seconds. Currently running HS4 on Ubntu 20.04 LTS in a Proxmox cluster.

[Thedude]

I report proudly that I broke the HS4 on RPi. It was working until I migrated using backup/restore functionality of HS4. After the "restore" HS4 web interface died and I can't access the system. I can see the files in \usr\local\homeseer I also noticed that the web server port has changed to :83 in the config.ini file as it is in my Windows setup. However I can't see the RPi HS4 web pages on neither :80 (default) or :83 (after migration) port.

[Demusman]

Is homeseer running?
Did you change the port back to 80? (assumed you meant settings.ini)

[Thedude]

Yes. Back in the game after changing :83 to :80 in config.ini file. I have over 1000 devices now, and the web interface is surprisingly fast. No delay whatsoever. With this said I'm yet to figure out half of the plug-ins. So no out of the woods yet. I may end up confirming what others are saying here but like my kids do I obviously want to learn from my own mistakes.

[Thedude]

Great news everyone ! HS4 is running on RPi4 w/8G of RAM with about 1,500 devices, 550 events, 8 plug-ins and a dozen of scripts. I played with it for about an hour and it feels very similar to my Windows 10 Home installation that runs on 64-bit AMD CPU with 8GB of RAM as well. Everything is up and running.

I have 2 issues with Windows -

(a) it rarely lasts more than a week without the need of some tweaking/restarting/forced upgrade (etc).
(b) HS4 web interface is O.K. most of the time but it has periods (not so rare) when it becomes really, really slow forcing me to restart HS4. I linked it to the log file becoming too large. I did restrict it in HS4 settings but it still grows larger than the restriction and I need to manually delete it.

which issues prompted me to look for "greener pastures".

Still too early to speak about RPi performance. Maybe it will also have "bad moods" of slowdown. Initial results are encouraging as it doesn't look worse than the Windows installation on a good day.

For example it takes 6 sec. to display a super long web page with all 1,500 devices. It also takes about 6 sec to display the full list of events. Once I filter devices by room/floor than everything is within 1-2 sec. Same 1-2 sec. when opening device and /or event for editing.

To address the concerns of John245 I do not have that many recurring events at short intervals. I'm not a fan of polling. I'd rather work asynchronously and have devices/sensors "call/report for service" rather than polling them constantly to see what do they have.

[John245]

To address the concerns of John245 I do not have that many recurring events at short intervals. I'm not a fan of polling. I'd rather work asynchronously and have devices/sensors "call/report for service" rather than polling them constantly to see what do they have.

In my case polling is not done by the HS server/ I have a serious number of Modbus devices that will report every 10 seconds to HomeSeer (Modbus server is running on my Node-RED server).

On my system it takes 2 seconds to display 2885 devices. Ans it takes about 2 seconds to display all my events. But with the new conditional actions I can reduce my number of events significantly.

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John

[Thedude]

John245 Please tell us more about your hardware if you don’t mind. If I’m to go through the hassle of migration than I better do it the right way with more powerful hardware than the Pi.

[John245]

John245 Please tell us more about your hardware if you don’t mind. If I’m to go through the hassle of migration than I better do it the right way with more powerful hardware than the Pi.

I don't think my hardware is representative, and is overkill if you only run HomeSeer.

But the main server has a Supermicro X12SPM-LN6TF, 3xPCI-e Gen 4, 8xDDR4, 2xIntel 10Gbe, 4xIntel 1Gbe, 1xM.2 NVMe, 10xSATA3, 4xNVMe motherboard with an
Intel® Xeon® Silver 4314 Processor - 16 Cores - 32 Threads - 2.4Ghz - 3.4Ghz turbo - 24MB Cache - 2S - 135W processor and 128 GB memory.

I installed Proxmox (Type 1 hypervisor) directly on top of a physical server. And have several VM's running on that. One of them is HomeSeer with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS as OS.

I installed Proxmox on two other PC's (with less CPU capacity and memory). The only purpose of this is to create a cluster and have HomeSeer in HA mode.


But you have the hardware. I will go with that. If you don't have an extensive data exchange it should be fit for your purpose. Otherwise, write down your plans for the future and people will climb in to advise.

But I migrated multiple times in the past and that should not be a hassle.

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John

[Thedude]

John245 Thanks for the valuable feedback and advise. Much appreciated.