I have a general question:
I’m using a Conbee II stick in my Debian Linux Server to have it 24/7 available in a headless installation - and it works really well. It works great with ioBroker - which is installed in the linux server as well and I can administer it in the browser from my windows workstation. So far so good.
Now I want to use the deconz-client on my windows workstation to lern more about zigbee and the devices- but the device-drop-down (which apprears at the start of deconz) doesn’t show any device and I don’t find any setting to point to the correct IP and port.
So here is my question: Isn’t it possible at all or do I only miss something?
You can’t. DeCONZ Gui needs to run on thesame machine as the Conbee/Raspbee is in. You can’t remotely connect to it. If you want that, you need to setup VNC or X11.
Okay. I understand.
But why is it that way? The only reason I can imagine is that deconz needs direct access to the hardware instead of using the API. If it’s using the API only it should be able to work remotely - maybe with small changes.
I’m asking because it’s really a huge overhead and waste of resources to setup an entire GUI and VNC on an completely CLI based server only to run deconz.
I’m aware of that. Apparently I made myself not clear enough: In my last post I tried to say that setting up a complete GUI and VNC environment on a server, that does not execute any GUI based software (neither locally nor remotely), needs to waste HDD-space, RAM and CPU constantly for all the GUI-software needed (x11 subsystem, desktop, software that gets installed beside the desktop like browser, GUIs for many applications, …) for the rare moments I’m using deconz.
Therefore it would be a huge benefit if deconz can get all data it needs via the API and does not need to access the serial port directly. Even if this needs some (hopefully minor) changes to the API and deconz.
Yes of course. But only if you have a GUI installed in the operating system. If not you not able to execute any GUI based software since the whole GUI subsystem is missing. In difference to Windows Linix offers this option. It’s like running FreeDOS instead of windows.
I think some people run the Docker version on headless which includes a VNC server with the GUI.
With a VNC client like “Real VNC” you can connect to this server and see the deCONZ GUI.
Thanks for your Idea, but like I already said: The problem is not the API-task (the deconz/deconz-gui) but the underlying operating system itself. It has no GUI/Desktop system installed - because the server does not need any GUI. All it’s services can be controlled perfectly by commandline or web-GUIs. Just like RaspberryPi OS lite.
To be honest: Never measured it exactly. I only found many many packages getting installed when I installed a desktop for a test. And there were not only the x11 and KDE/Gnome itself but also all the GUI tools for many apps, Firefox, OpenOffice, and and and. Aside of that for me it doesn’t matter how many percent are wasted. Waste is waste. Every percent counts when I don’t need it for anything else and desktops usually aren’t well known to be light weighted.
So for me the question isn’t “how much?” but more: Why? Maybe it’s only a small change in deconz. It’s worth asking for it.
