http request action & digest auth

[cw-kid]

Hello

I haven't updated my installation of MSR in a very long time. Its a bare metal Linux install currently on version 24366-3de60836

I see the latest version is now latest-26011-c621bbc7

I assume I cannot just jump from a very old version to the latest version? Or can I?

Thanks

[toggledbits]

It should be fine. Take a backup of your storage directory in its entirety before the upgrade, along with config and any other directories where you may have customizations (perhaps also ext if you have add-in Controllers). Then go. Make sure you do a npm run deps in the install directory before starting the new version of Reactor, to upgrade package dependencies, or Reactor will likely not start. Post if you have any problems.

Edit: Oh! And very important... make sure you are running nodejs version 18 or higher. If you have to upgrade, install a current LTS (Long-Term Support) version (either 22 or 24). Stick to even-numbered releases.

[cw-kid]

@toggledbits ok many thanks. I will check everything out that you have suggested.

I am also now looking to ditch Vera / Ezlo. I've mainly been using my old Vera Plus hub fine the new Ezlo hubs and software is a bit crappy.

Thinking of getting a Hubitat hub to just act as a Z-Wave radio and still use MSR.

Main thing is I may lose my current "Home Remote" dashboard app and would have to use what ever dashboard solution Hubitat provide. Not checked that out yet.

[tamorgen]

@cw-kid,
I ditched my Vera Plus several years ago. I started just by migrating to a Raspberry Pi 4 and Home Assistant, and MSR. Hubitat just for a Z-Wave radio is overkill. I used a Z-Wave USB dongle from Aeotec, but there are others out there (Zooz is inexpensive and actively develops Z-Wave).

Now I use a Mini PC, run HA and MSR as VMs on Proxmox, and still use the z-wave dongle. Might want to look into something like that, rather lock yourself into a proprietary ecosystem like Habitat.

[therealdb]

I’d go with ZwaveJS. I migrated from Vera Zwave radio to a new usb radio and then to home assistant Zwave dongle. I recommend their antenna because the range is incredible. Zero lags and zero packet lost. See my older posts.

[CatmanV2]

Another vote. Moved off Vera years ago. Ran OpenLuup on a Zwave.me stick. Minimised my Z-wave network this last month. I have two thermostats, a fibaro smart module with three temperature sensors that I don't need, and some virtual switches that I'm migrating into HA / Reactor.
Once I can settle on replacements for the thermostats, it'll all go, and I'll be HA / MSR only / MQTT only

C

[cw-kid]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. You are right Home Assistant would be better. I just don't have a lot of time or energy to build a whole system from the ground up myself, which is why I was thinking about Hubitat. I think you can buy some ready made Home Assistant boxes, I've seen some on ebay here in the UK. Might do that or if I can be bothered just build my own etc.

[cw-kid]

@toggledbits said in How to upgrade from an old version of MSR?:

Edit: Oh! And very important... make sure you are running nodejs version 18 or higher. If you have to upgrade, install a current LTS (Long-Term Support) version (either 22 or 24). Stick to even-numbered releases.

OK having a go at doing this today. I just updated Linux Debian on my little HP Thin Client box that runs MSR. Ran this command etc sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

I then managed to update Nodejs from version 20.20.0 to version 24.13.0.

I checked the node path first

which node
/usr/bin/node

And checked what the current version was?

node -v

And to update nodejs I ran these commands

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_24.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Took a backup of all the MSR folders and files to my PC and then I followed the regular way I have always updated MSR via the command line.

cd /home/myusername
pkill -QUIT node
tar xzvf /home/myusername/reactor-latest-26011-c621bbc7.tar.gz

And then ran npm run deps before starting MSR again, sudo systemctl start reactor

After that is stated "added 28 packages, removed 44 packages, changed 47 packages, and audited 102 packages in 27s"

MSR now appears to be running latest-26011-c621bbc7

I am current moving all the Z-Wave devices off the Ezlo hubs back to my old Vera Plus hub, there is only a handful of those to do (kept most of my Z-Wave devices on the Vera hub). Will get everything running back on the Vera hub and then look at migrating to something like Home Assistant etc. Just wanting to get rid of the new Ezlo hubs initially and turn them OFF.

[cw-kid]

Now actually looking at MSR more closely, I went into the rulesets menu item and I could not see any of my rules. I then refreshed the browser (Brave) and its stuck on Loading Reactor now. So maybe things didn't go so well, after all.

Using WinSCP to connect to the box I can still see the ruleset files present on the file system.

Not sure what went wrong then? All the updating stuff appeared to go OK.

I then tried rebooting the MSR box and now everything is back in MSR again. So maybe it was as simply as that? I also needed to reboot the Linux box.

[cw-kid]

Funny one thing I did have running on an Ezlo hub that worked quite well was their Site Sensor plugin. I used that to tell me if my Emby media sever had gone offline / down. Just installed the Vera Site Sensor plugin instead, which I have never used, trying to figure out how to use it now and see it was written by Patrick!

Well that old Vera plugin still seems to work, it took a long time to trigger my new MSR rule however, even with the Site Sensor plugin set to a 60 secs interval. But it did eventually trigger the rule and send a TTS to my Google Home speak saying Emby sever was down.

[therealdb]

@cw-kid nope, this is an hardware Zwave key from the guys working on home assistant that will work with anything you want and does not require home assistant at all. In fact, we’re running Zwave from ZwaveJS inside our own mini pc, no external hardware needed.

[cw-kid]

@therealdb I'm not sure I understand what ZwaveJS is ?

For example if I bought a mini PC, I would also need a USB Z-Wave stick like the Aeotec or Zooz one and then I'd install Home Assistant OS and tell it to use that Z-Wave stick etc.

So where does ZwaveJS come into play?

Thanks

And I need a recommendation for a Zigbee USB stick as well please. So I can also use Zigbee devices (I don't currently).

[cw-kid]

I like the new search feature for rulesets in MSR also! very handy, has helped me find associated rules today about some devices I have removed from one controller and added to a different controller. I could then more easily find such rules and edit their triggers to reflect the device location changes etc. I need to read the MSR release notes to also see what is new and different.

[therealdb]

@cw-kid ZwaveJS is a piece of software, like reactor, specifically meant to provide Zwave software service. As such, it requires some usb key in order to work. No need to use home assistant. Nabu casa has some hardware as Zwave usb key that’s the best in town at the moment, known as ZWA-2. Together they make the same hw+sw as in Vera or Hubitat, but open and well maintained.
Install Zwave js ui, plug the usb key and you’re ready to go.

ZwaveJS UI => https://github.com/zwave-js/zwave-js-ui
Home Assistant ZWA-2 Zwave key => https://www.home-assistant.io/connect/zwa-2/

[cw-kid]

@therealdb OK I think I understand.

So if I had an Aeotec USB stick, I could then use ZwaveJS with that USB stick and ZwaveJS is like the driver / Z-Wave stack software for it then right?

I think I will still need to use Home Assistant as well as they would provide me with the Dashboard interface / app etc.

I will look more into ZWA-2 that you mentioned and learn more.

[toggledbits]

@cw-kid said in How to upgrade from an old version of MSR?:

Well that old Vera plugin still seems to work, it took a long time to trigger my new MSR rule however, even with the Site Sensor plugin set to a 60 secs interval. But it did eventually trigger the rule and send a TTS to my Google Home speak saying Emby sever was down.

Since you are hitting an endpoint in your local network, you can shorten the HTTP timeout by setting the Timeout variable on the SiteSensor device.

[cw-kid]

@toggledbits ok thanks will try that.

I've currently got the Interval set to 60 secs and the Timeout now at 10 secs.

I just wanted to know if the Emby server goes down as my mum connects to it remotely sometimes and I don't always notice if it's no longer up and running.

Cheers.

[therealdb]

@cw-kid exactly. You’ll be able to use in reactor as the entities coming from other controllers, or in home assistant for your dashboards.

[cw-kid]

@therealdb Ok I watched some YouTube videos and understand some more now.

So I could use a Zooz USB Z-Wave controller stick and within Home Assistant you use ZwaveJS addon as the software for adding new Zwave devices and you can also manage your devices by doing firmware updates on them and you can also manage your Z-Wave mesh network and nodes and the routes etc. That all looks pretty cool!

Home Assistant can then be used to create your custom dashboard etc and we can still use MSR to create our logic rules, instead of whatever they tend to use in Home Assistant is? I think they either use Home Assistants inbuilt rules engine or NodeRed right?

Second option is the same as above but instead of using a Zooz USB stick you can use the newish ZWA-2 massive antenna / Z-Wave controller instead also with ZwaveJS addon within Home Assistant etc. For all your existing Z-Wave devices.

If using Z-Wave long range for a particular device then that device talks directly to the ZWA-2 controller and is then not part of the regular Z-Wave mesh network but is then separate.

I think I have a very basic understanding now.

I also need to choose a Zigbee USB stick / controller. I have not looked into that as yet. I do have a few Zigbee devices here but never used them as Vera / Ezlo was crap for Zigbee devices. Even their new Ezlo hub where you could pair Zigbee devices to them, over a period of time those Zigbee devices would just go offline and stop working. So I gave up on using Zigbee and Ezlo never fixed the problem I don't think.

[cw-kid]

@tamorgen said in How to upgrade from an old version of MSR?:

run HA and MSR as VMs on Proxmox

So your running MSR and HA as virtual machines? On Proxmox.

I've never heard of Proxmox before, will have to look into it.

So whats the advantage of running them as virtual machines?

Vs running Home Assistant OS and MSR also running on the same OS (if possible).

Edit: Gemini A.I. told me lol.

Which should you choose for your Mini PC?
​Since you're getting a dedicated Mini PC, you have two great paths:

​The "Easy" Way (Bare Metal): Flash the HAOS image directly onto the Mini PC's hard drive. It turns your Dell/HP/Lenovo into a dedicated "Home Assistant Hub." It’s rock solid and zero maintenance.

​The "Pro" Way (Proxmox): Install a hypervisor called Proxmox (which is based on Debian) on the PC first. Then, run HAOS in a Virtual Machine.
​Why do this? It allows you to use the leftover power of your Mini PC to run other things (like a media server or a file server) alongside Home Assistant without them interfering with each other.

‐--------

So it sounds like if I just use HAOS it's locked down OS and I won't be able to install other things like MSR. So looks like I need to go down the Proxmox route as you suggested.