A Call For Wiki Contributions

[S-F]

OK folks. I'm not really sure how to go about this, but, I'm looking for information to put in a HS Wiki. This thread is going to be a starting point for data collection. I have some time and a desire to have an organized body of information on all the the neat things you can do with HS but have little technical knowledge so I'm looking for input. Ideally I'd like to have a Wiki that's organized like the forum with sections for plugins and so forth. So please one and all share your ideas and information!

[reidfo]

Great idea! I just sent you a PM.

[S-F]

Just to clarify, we already have a Wiki set up. Mark set it up last year and it never took off for some reason. What we need now is content. Scripts, how to's, input on how to organize it, anything.

[John245]

Just to clarify, we already have a Wiki set up. Mark set it up last year and it never took off for some reason. What we need now is content. Scripts, how to's, input on how to organize it, anything.

Very helpful will be a list of Z-wave devices available with the following info:

Z-wave device description, manufacturer, FW; tested with Z-Wave PI version version, what was tested, parameters, etc..

This could also be set-up for other primary technologies such as Modbus, etc...

If a big part of the HS community will contribute to this all people will profit from it.

---
John

[S-F]

Very helpful will be a list of Z-wave devices available with the following info:

Z-wave device description, manufacturer, FW; tested with Z-Wave PI version version, what was tested, parameters, etc..

This could also be set-up for other primary technologies such as Modbus, etc...

If a big part of the HS community will contribute to this all people will profit from it.

---
John

I agree. Do you want to start compiling this list?

[John245]

I agree. Do you want to start compiling this list?

In principle yes, but no wiki experience.

If I can just create a template I'm glad to contribute.

---
John

[Pete]

Here is a quickie DIY I wrote today. Needs work and did this installation yesterday for a Homeseer user / plugin author using an RPi3 with Stretch on it.

A copy and paste from my other post. Maybe screen shots or a video recording of my typing would help?

Yesterday remotely via a WAN SSH session created a new Homeseer 3 RPi3 using a base image of Stretch...still fresh in my mind...

This could be titled something like:

Homeseer Zee2 Lite, HS3 Standard or Pro installation on an RPi3 - Stretch computer soup to nuts

- before un tar HS3 to /opt directory

1 - logged in via pi and initially changed the pi password to something else
2 - created a homeseer sudo user, pete sudo user, owner sudo user on the Pi
3 - created a root password
4 - changed ssh configuration to allow for root ssh
5 - did an update and upgrade
6 - install mono-complete and vnbc stuff Rich mentions.
7 - rebooted RPi3 and ssh'd via WAN via root

- after untar of HS3 This is what I personally do.

8 - untarred HS3 Pro / Standard to /opt/HomeSeer directory
9 - redid rights for the /opt/Homeseer directory to allow RW for users created (it should work without this step but I do it anyways)
10 - opened a second ssh session with a loopback configured and edited my local browser to use the ssh loopback address
11 - ran ./go in HS3 directory on one terminal session
12 - used my browser (edited to utilize the loopback address of 127.0.0.1 / port:8888 to get to the HS3 box - you then just type the IP of the homeseer3 server like so....hxxp://localipofhomeseer:5555 NOTE SSH is a cheap way fast way to create a sort of VPN tunnel.
13 - HS3 started up without a prompt to change the administrative password
14 - disabled default access
15 - created a homeseer, pete, user and password with admin rights in the HS3 GUI
16 - changed the default port from 80 to 5555
17 - disabled upnp and myhomeseer access for time bean
18 - set location (before this also did the local time thing in the terminal session)
19 - disabled energy stuff
20 - reduced log size to 5Mb
21 - enabled iphack blocking
22 - disabled myhomeseer remote (for time bean)
23 - enabled json and ascii stuff
24 - disabled upnp
25 - enabled hstouch

Total time from soup to nuts was about 20 minutes or so. The mono installation took the longest.

This works well for a new build starting from scratch.

[S-F]

Nice job Pete! I think screenshots would be good. Not sure if you can put a video in a Wiki.

[Pete]

Thank you Colin.

Yeah not sure how to embed a you tube video in a wiki.

[sirmeili]

Nice job Pete! I think screenshots would be good. Not sure if you can put a video in a Wiki.

What is the wikis software that is being used? (Though I am moving into .net web services, I have about 15 years of enterprise level web application development under my belt )

I could always research how to do some of the things like that

[S-F]

What is the wikis software that is being used? (Though I am moving into .net web services, I have about 15 years of enterprise level web application development under my belt )

I could always research how to do some of the things like that

No clue. Mark set it up. Really what we need is raw data! We have about a million people who want to participate in managing the data but have no data to put up on the Wiki! I know that you're a plugin developer. It would be great if you could write up some comprehensive stuff about your plugin (Only one as of yet, right?) that could be put up.

[Pete]

Here are some discussions from 2016 initiated by Mark.

Wiki Basic Outline

--Cfguy (talk) 16:29, 3 February 2016 (MST) 1. HomeSeer Section

This section is for the install and setup of HomeSeer software and hardware. Usage wiil be in the Tutorial Section

A. Software

B. Hardware

2. Tutorials

A. HomeSeer (Things like events, devices, plugin management)

B. Hardware (Z-Net, Zee, Desktop touchpads)

3. 3rd Party Plugins

A. Start the list of Categories from the Updater page

When you go to the Category page there would be a list of the plugins that have meet the criteria to be included. The Plugin names would be links. On the page for the pluin have a link for documentation, a link for tutorials Perhaps a link for reviews.

4. Legacy

Have not seen Sparkman (Al)...last conversation related to taking a summer break ...

Went looking for the old Wiki we started and nothing is there...

hxxps://homeseer.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

File not found.

[sirmeili]

No clue. Mark set it up. Really what we need is raw data! We have about a million people who want to participate in managing the data but have no data to put up on the Wiki! I know that you're a plugin developer. It would be great if you could write up some comprehensive stuff about your plugin (Only one as of yet, right?) that could be put up.

Only one that's released. I'm trying to write a plugin base to make standing up plugin's easier then i can release that for others that want to use it.

And I could help out with a section on plugins, but @spud or @Blade might be better choices just for the fact that they've written so much.

For that matter, maybe @jon00 could help out with the scripting section (or remote plugins).

And don't get me wrong. I'll provide as much as I can to the effort in in way I can

[Pete]

Here is another Linux HS3 post - it is a copy and paste.

pmoneill

Location: Fort Collins, Colorado

Correct Installation of HS3 Standard on Raspberry Pi 3

I have not found any official Linux installation instructions from Home Seer while none of the forum posts are complete and accurate. Here is the process I developed over the last week. I am not an expert so I'll take the community's inputs to improve this post.

Overview

These instructions are written for installing HS3 Standard on a headless Raspberry Pi 3B (RPi 3) microcomputer running its standard Raspbian operating system. Raspbian is the Debian-based version of Linux provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. As of this writing, the current version of Raspbian is called Stretch, which succeeded Jessie in September 2017. Since HS3 is easily accessed from a web browser or mobile app, there is no need to add a monitor or keyboard to the Raspberry Pi, i.e. it can be run “headless”, though a keyboard and monitor are helpful temporarily during installation. Not using HS3 from the controller’s monitor and dedicating the RPi to home automation, there is no need for the Linux graphical user interface and the application software that comes with the standard Raspbian installation, so use the Lite version instead. This will free up compute resources to allow HS3 to perform better.

HomeSeer is written in Microsoft .NET; therefore it is fundamentally a Microsoft Windows package. HomeSeer is enabled to run on Linux by the Mono .NET emulator. Not being a usual part of a Linux installation, Mono must be installed separately. In Linux, HomeSeer resides entirely in the HomeSeer directory under the user’s home directory. By default in Raspbian Linux, this is the /home/pi/HomeSeer directory.

Linux Installation

Install Raspbian Lite:
1. Download Raspbian Stretch Lite to a PC.
2. Write the Raspbian image to a micro SD card with the Etcher SD card image writer for Linux and Windows ( https://etcher.io/ ).
3. Insert this micro SD card into the powered-down Raspberry Pi 3.
4. Connect the RPi to your network with an Ethernet cable if you are not using Wi-Fi because it is about to automatically download more software.
5. Attach a monitor and keyboard to the RPi.
6. Boot the RPi by powering it on and let it do its automatic installations and updates, which might take up to 15 minutes.

If you will only connect to your RPi 3 via Ethernet and USB then disabled the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios at the firmware level to improve security and to save power. Add these lines to /boot/config.txt:
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt

Keep Raspbian’s default user of “pi” and default file structure.

Start the RPi text-based configuration tool with sudo raspi-config and:
1. Change the password for the default user “pi” from “raspberry” to a stronger one.
2. Set localization from UK to your locale. (For United States English pick US en-US-UTF8.)
3. Enabled SSH on boot to be able to remotely administer this system.
4. Expand the file system to utilize the entire SD card
5. Set the hostname to the name of your choosing.
6. Memory split - give as little memory as possible to the GPU
7. Reboot for all of these changes to take effect: sudo shutdown -r now .

Prepare the RPi for HomeSeer installation:
1. Shut down the RPi: sudo shutdown -h now .
2. Remove the monitor and keyboard from the RPi and make all further connections from a Linux computer terminal with SSH or a Windows computer SSH client like PuTTY.
3. Remove the micro SD card.

HomeSeer HS3 Installation

Download HomeSeer:
1. Download the HS3 Linux tar file hs3_linux_<version>.tar.gz to a PC.
2. Copy it to the inserted micro SD card as /home/pi/hs3_linux_<version>.tar.gz with the PC file manager.
3. Eject the micro SD card from the PC.
4. Insert the micro SD into the powered-down, headless RPi.
5. Power up the RPi and allow it to boot up.

Install Mono to run Microsoft .NET code on Linux:
1. Connect to the RPi as user “pi” with SSH from a PC: ssh <hostname>
2. sudo apt update
3. sudo apt install mono-complete
4. sudo apt install mono-vbnc
5. sudo apt install mono-xsp4

After installation, make sure you update the builds. Repeat this pair of commands several times to update all of the dependencies.
1. sudo apt update
2. sudo apt upgrade

Install HomeSeer: sudo tar xvf hs3_linux_<version>.tar.gz

The tar script creates the /home/pi/HomeSeer directory.

HomeSeer can be started by cd HomeSeer followed by sudo ./go , but this only runs HomeSeer while the SSH console session is active.

Better is to run the heart of the go script in the background without logging:
sudo mono HomeSeer/HSConsole.exe &

Best is to automatically start HS3 at bootup by adding this line to /etc/rc.local before the “exit 0” line:
sudo mono /home/pi/HomeSeer/HSConsole.exe &

[Pete]

Here is a post relating to purging old mono and installing new Mono 5.4.

1 - shut down your Homeseer 3 application
2 - type
sudo apt-get update
3 - type
sudo apt-get upgrade
4 - if it asks to reboot then type
sudo reboot
5 - shut down Homeseer after it reboots

6 - purge old mono by typing (this has worked for me)
sudo apt-get purge libmono* cli-common mono-runtime or mono-complete
7 - check if mono is still installed by typing
mono -V
8 - install newest version of mono for Raspbian or Ubuntu 16.04 typing..

Raspbian 9

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF

echo "deb hxxp://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian raspbianstretch main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official.list

sudo apt-get update

Ubuntu 16.04

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF

echo "deb hxxp://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu xenial main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official.list

sudo apt-get update

*xx=tt

sudo apt-get install mono-complete
sudo sudo apt-get install mono-vbnc

Then type

mono -V

to verify your mono version.

caveat==> if updating a working HS3 from Mono 3.28 to Mono 5.4 note that you may lose your event triggers.