Home Assistant on Hyper-V how to Use VirtualHere for USB Passthrough

Submitted by pcgumshoe on #1

Hello, I’m new to Home Assistant and I have set up a Home Assistant Server on my HOME Dell Server running Windows Server 2019. I used a guide to create my home assistant VM in Hyper-V where I downloaded the .vhdx file. Everything is working the way I believe it should on my Home Assistant Server. The only thing, of course, is that I cannot passthrough my Nortek Husbzb-1 USB Dongle.

I’ve read that VirtualHere can and will pass through this dongle to Home Assistant, but IIUC, my installation of Home Assistant cannot integrate VirtualHere. Again, IIUC, I would need to do a different style Hyper-v where Home Assistant is installed on Linux (which I’m not very familiar, but I can follow directions well)

I don’t know the advantages and disadvantages of running Home Assistant in that format. I would prefer to do things the way they are set up now, if I can access this Dongle via VirtualHere. I’m ready to purchase it, even if I can’t test it beforehand, but I also need to make sure that I am setting up the dongle Server correctly and it can be on my Dell Server with the Dongle plugged in. In other words, the USB Dongle is Plugged into my Windows Server 2019, which is running the instance of Home Assistant I want to Port via VirtualHere the Norte3k Husbzb-1 to gain Z-wave and Zigbee.

I’ve read about VirtualHere being available in a "DOCKER" for Home Assistant, but I believe this will only work if I convert my installation to a Linux installation with Home Assistant installed on Linux vs .vhdx hyper-v.

Am I correct?
Can you recommend some how-to-guides? (sorry, my searches all point to "how to install Home Assistant" whenever I searched "Installing VirtualHere and Home Assistant on Hyper-v")

1) Do I have to change from .vhdx to Linux Install?
2) Can I run VirtualHere somehow on my current .vhdx Home Assistant Server?
3) Can the Dongle be in the same computer the Hyper-v is running on, or should it be ANOTHER computer on the network?
4) If there’s anything I missed, please ask.

Submitted by Michael on Sat, 2021/12/04 - 17:05

#2

Sorry i dont know much about home assistant, but basically you run the virtualhere server on real hardware e.g windows running hyper-v host then just run the virtualhere client inside the guest VM. If they dont automatically find each other, then just right click USB Hubs->Specify Hubs and put in the IP address of the virtualhere server

Submitted by pcgumshoe on Sun, 2021/12/05 - 05:39

#3

Yes, I understand what you have said. I'm trying to understand the environment Home Assistant is in and +/-. I have the server set up on my Windows Server 2019 Dell Server. This server has 5 IP addresses, which IP do I pick?

Submitted by Michael on Sun, 2021/12/05 - 08:20

#4

It doesn't matter what IP you pick, VirtualHere listens on all of them.

However usually you can tell what ip to use because the server ip and the client ip would have the first three octets the same. E.g

Host IP = 192.168.1.17

Guest IP = 192.168.1.21

Or something like that. Therefore you use the IP 192.168.1.17 in the virtualhere client Specify Hubs section

Submitted by pcgumshoe on Tue, 2021/12/07 - 01:58

#5

However, this STILL does not address my needs. If I need to install HOME assistant ON Linux, and install Linux on my Hyper-V, I need to find a how to guide to set up this install, but I also STILL don't know the advantages IF that is what I need to do!

Submitted by Michael on Tue, 2021/12/07 - 07:13

#6

OK well this is not really the forum for that, just ask in the Home Assistant forum

Submitted by pcgumshoe on Sat, 2021/12/18 - 06:02

#7

I'm still confused: I know that it's my lack of Linux Knowledge.

On my Debian VM, I typed: sudo ./vhclientx86_64 - n, I get back "sudo: ./vhclientx86_64: command not found...

Am I supposed to type that in the terminal INSIDE Home Assistant?

Also, it says:
Step 1. Start the Client as a daemon so that it runs in the background using the -n flag. You can move it into an init.d script so it runs on startup as a daemon (how?/why? I'm confused)
Step 2. Run the client again and this time use the -t argument to control the daemon (same as above)

There's also information about doing something in DOCKER, I know I installed docker, but I don't know what it means to do something in DOCKER...

Then there's this:

wget https://www.virtualhere.com/sites/default/files/usbclient/scripts/virtu…
wget https://www.virtualhere.com/sites/default/files/usbclient/vhclientx86_64
chmod +x ./vhclientx86_64
sudo mv ./vhclientx86_64 /usr/sbin
sudo mv virtualhereclient.service /etc/systemd/system/virtualhereclient.service
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable virtualhereclient.service
systemctl start virtualhereclient.service

Where do I put this? In the CONFIGURATION FILE in HomeAssistant?

I was able to get drivers for my Z-wave and Zigbee device on my server.

I've run the VirtualHere Server on my Windows Server 2019. I have NO clue how to properly install the client on the Debian VM.

Submitted by pcgumshoe on Sat, 2021/12/18 - 09:19

#8

I'm sure there's a Guide somewhere out there, I just haven't found it yet. My knowledge is being pieced together from multiple posts each only partly what I need to know. I'm pretty sure I could pick this up.

Submitted by Michael on Sat, 2021/12/18 - 09:50

#9

This is not a forum to learn about docker or Linux, please don't post amymore

Submitted by pcgumshoe on Sat, 2021/12/18 - 10:15

#10

Way to sell your product!