Homeseer on LXC

This will set up Homeseer HS4 running on an unprivileged LXC container, passing through the USB interface for a combined Z-Wave / Zigbee device LNHUSBZB1.

Container setup

Create the container

Create an unprivileged LXC container

Assumes Sub UUID/GUID mapping is 100000
Name of container is homeseer
Should be based on latest Ubuntu LTS release (not Debian, as this is missing key packages)

Start and attach to the container

lxc-start homeseer
lxc-attach homeseer

The following commands are inside the container. Create the homeseer user and add group membership for tty

adduser homeseer
usermod -a -G tty homeseer

Note down the group id for group tty

getent group tty
# tty:x:5:homeseer

In this case the group id is 5

Now stop the container on the host

lxc-stop homeseer

Setup USB device

Identify the controller USB device

lsusb | grep Home
# Bus 003 Device 002: ID 10c4:8a2a Silicon Labs HubZ Smart Home Controller

Note down the ID (in this case 10c4:8a2a)

Edit UDEV rules to change the serial interface permissions

Edit or create /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usb-serial.rules. Add the following lines

# for DUAL interface USB device
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ENV{ID_USB_INTERFACE_NUM}="$attr{bInterfaceNumber}"
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="8a2a", ENV{ID_USB_INTERFACE_NUM}=="00", SYMLINK+="zwave0", OWNER="100000", GROUP="100005"
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="8a2a", ENV{ID_USB_INTERFACE_NUM}=="01", SYMLINK+="zwave1", OWNER="100000", GROUP="100005"

Where

idVendor and idProduct are the USB ID from above.
OWNER is the sub id mapping of root in the container
GROUP is the sub id mapping of the tty group in the container (i.e. 100000 + 5)

Note that we have 3 lines because the controller is a dual-serial interface device. If there is only one port just a single line would be necessary:

# for SINGLE interface device
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="8a2a", SYMLINK+="zwave0", OWNER="100000", GROUP="100005"

Reload UDEV rules

udevadm control --reload
udevadm trigger

There should now be one (or two for a combo interface) ttyUSB files in dev, with a zwave symlink

ls -l /dev/zwave*
# lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Dec 01 10:10 /dev/zwave0 -> ttyUSB0
# lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Dec 01 10:10 /dev/zwave1 -> ttyUSB1

You need to identify the actual interface(s) by looking at the symlink

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*
# crw-rw---- 1 100000 100005 188, 0 Dec 01 10:10 /dev/ttyUSB0
# crw-rw---- 1 100000 100005 188, 1 Dec 01 10:10 /dev/ttyUSB1

Note down the Major ID of the interface, in this case 188

Pass the USB controller into the container

Edit /var/lib/lxc/homeseer/config or equivalent and add the follwing:

lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 188:* rwm
lxc.mount.entry = /dev/zwave0 dev/ttyUSB0 none bind,optional,create=file
lxc.mount.entry = /dev/zwave1 dev/ttyUSB1 none bind,optional,create=file

Start the container and verify that the serial devices are created correctly.

On the host

lxc-start homeseer
lxc-attach homeseer

In the container, if permissions and passthrough have been set up correctly the devices will appear with the right user and group (root/tty)

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*
# crw-rw---- 1 root tty 188, 0 Dec 01 11:26 /dev/ttyUSB0
# crw-rw---- 1 root tty 188, 1 Dec 01 11:26 /dev/ttyUSB1

Install Homeseer

The following commands should all be within the container

Install dependencies

apt-get install --yes mono-complete mono-devel mono-vbnc flite chromium-browser aha ffmpeg alsa-base alsa-utils tmux curl wget nano
apt-get remove --yes brltty

Install HomeSeer

Download Homeseer package from official site and install into /opt/HomeSeer.

wget [url to tarball]
tar xzvf [tarball]
mkdir -p /opt
mv HomeSeer /opt
chown -R homeseer:homeseer /opt/HomeSeer

Setup systemd

Create systemd unit file /etc/systemd/system/homeseer.service with contents

[Unit]
Description=HomeSeer Server
Documentation=https://homeseer.com
After=network-online.target remote-fs.target time-sync.target
Before=multi-user.target

[Service]
User=homeseer
WorkingDirectory=/opt/HomeSeer
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mono /opt/HomeSeer/HSConsole.exe --log
SyslogIdentifier=HS4
StandardOutput=null
StandardError=syslog
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=30
KillMode=none
TimeoutStopSec=300
ExecStop=/opt/HomeSeer/hsstop.sh
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Finally enable and start the service

systemctl enable homeseer
systemctl start homeseer

The UI should now be available at http://ADDRESS_OF_CONTAINER/

References

Theme Moonwalk