Preface!
Before I get too far ahead of myself here, I wanted to bring attention up to a key piece of my home “infrastructure”:
ProxmoxVE
So What is Proxmox and How Does That Help Me?
Proxmox is what’s called a hypervisor. If you’re not familiar with what a hypervisor is, I’ll give a brief explanation.
Hypervisors are a piece of software that is capable of running directly on computer hardware, much like Windows, Linux or MacOS. The difference being that the hypervisor, once installed on “bare metal” is capable of running virtual copies of Windows, Linux and/or MacOS. So in simpler terms, it allows you to potentially run multiple copies of operating systems on the same hardware rather than installing multiple instances of the software across many machines.
Sweet, So Can You Answer How That Helps?
Simply put, you can install HAOS (Home Assistant) alongside more VMs. For instance, I run other home automation tools in containers running inside of Promox in tandem with full Linux servers. All on the same hardware. Each functions perfectly fine for my needs on just small Lenovo micro PC.
Well do a section on the Proxmox install first and showcase some of what that can do. Reason being as it is trivial and incredibly easy to load HA up through a script provided by the HA community. It’s fast, clean and customizable. In fact, it’s quicker and easier to do that some of the more official routes.
The added benefit is that you can then install other software that snaps into your home automation ecosystem. Perfect example of that would be a software called Mealie. Say goodbye to all those recipe cards and start planning those meals automatically!
If you’d like to get a jump on Proxmox, check there website here: https://www.proxmox.com/en/
Stay Tuned – NorthstarGeek