Domoticz is a free and open source home automation server very simple to install and configure on a Raspberry Pi 3 (or 2). In this article we will discover how to install and configure it. To write this article I used a Raspberry Pi 3 equipped with a Micro SD board 8GB class 10. We will see how to configure the WiFi connection of the new Raspberry Pi 3 if you do not have an ethernet plug nearby.

Equipment used

The Raspberry Pi 3 is very well adapted to the realization of a home automation box 100% Domoticz. Here is a typical configuration.

That is a budget of about €65.

Installation of Domoticz on Raspbian

Let’s start by updating the system

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot

Then we check that the file system is extended and that the whole place of the SD board is available. run

sudo raspi-config

Then go to 1 Expand Filesystem

Restart the RPI with sudo reboot to complete the operation.

Create the Domoticz user

Even if it is not necessary, it is best to create a domoticz user. Run the following command and fill in the requested information (the account name and password at a minimum). For security, give a password different from that of the user pi.

sudo adduser domoticz

The new user is added to the sudo group to allow it to use this command.

sudo adduser domoticz sudo

Change user

su domoticz

Then, you modify the configuration to allow the user to execute sudo commands without entering the password.

sudo visudo

At the end of the file, insert this new line

domoticz ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Save with Ctrl + X then Y.

Installing Domoticz

Now that everything is ready, change account and run the installation with this curl command.

sudo curl -L install.domoticz.com | bash

This simple command will take care of everything. From the installation of the dependencies to the configuration via small configurators that will appear as the installation.

Configuration start

You can activate change the HTTP and HTTPS ports

Change the destination folder

Installation is completed

Once the installation is complete, close the last window and wait for the Domoticz service to start before you connect from a browser to your new smart home box.

Configure the keyboard

Then run sudo raspi-config  to run the configuration utility. Go to option (5) Internationalization Options then Change Local. Choose your language into the list then validate (2 times).

When done, go back to Internationalization Options and go to Change Keyboard Layout. In the list select PC Generic (intl) then in the keyboard layout English – French (variant). If you do not know which model to choose do not change anything to the following options.

You can now quit raspi-config and reboot your Pi so that the settings apply with the command

sudo reboot

Configure the Wi-Fi connection

Start raspi-config and go to option (5) Internationalization Options then Change Wi-Fi Country. In the list choose FR France. Confirm and exit raspi-config

We will now verify that there is a wlan0 connection. Normally it is already pre-configured on Raspbian.

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

You should have the following lines in the configuration. If not, add the following lines.

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
   wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf (dans certain tutos on trouve également les options "iface default inet dhcp")

Press CTRL+X then Y to save and exit nano.

Now you need to set up authentication to the WiFi network. Type

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Your configuration file should look like this

country=FR
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
network={
  ssid="SSID"
  psk="PASSWORD"
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Save and exit nano and then apply the changes by restarting your Pi (sudo reboot).

You can also manually restart the WiFi interface like this. The wlan0 interface is turned off.

sudo ifdown wlan0

Restart

sudo ifup wlan0

After restarting (or doing ifdown / ifup), type ifconfig. If your configuration is correct, on the 2nd line of the block wlan0 is the ip address of your Domoticz server (it also appears at startup).

Enable SSH connection

Enabling the ssh connection will allow you to access your Domoticz server from another machine without the need to connect a keyboard and a screen to your Raspberry Pi.

To enable ssh, go to option (8) Advanced Options then (A4) SSH. Validate Enable.

Now you can access your Raspberry from Windows using Putty or from the Terminal under Mac OS X and Linux using the command

ssh pi@IP_PI

Librairie libssl.so.1.0.0 absent on Raspbian Stretch

The error was pointed out to me by Philippe in the comments. Several libraries (libssl.so.1.0.0, libcrypto ..) are absent on Raspbian Stretch (version of August 2017), which prevents the start of Domoticz. When you launch Domoticz, you will get the following message

./domoticz: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.1.0.0: can not open shared object file: No such file or directory

Here is how to install the library (thanks to Philippe who found the solution on the official forum of Domoticz).

The Linux ldd command verifies that all necessary libraries are installed. Run the following command by changing the path if necessary.

ldd /home/domoticz/domoticz

The command returns the list of required libraries and indicates the installation path. If a library is missing, the message not found is shown next to it. for example

/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem.so (0xb6f73000)
libusb-0.1.so.4 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libusb-0.1.so.4 (0xb6f47000)
libssl.so.1.0.0 => not found
libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => not found
librt.so.1 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/librt.so.1 (0xb6f30000)
libresolv.so.2 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libresolv.so.2 (0xb6f0b000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libpthread.so.0 (0xb6ee2000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libz.so.1 (0xb6ebb000)
libcurl.so.4 => /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libcurl.so.4 (0xb6e3f000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libdl.so.2 (0xb6e2c000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libm.so.6 (0xb6dad000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6 (0xb6c6e000)
/lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3 (0xb6f88000)
.....

To manually install the libssl.so library, we will already download it

wget http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl1.0.0_1.0.1t-1+deb8u6_armhf.deb

Then install it

sudo dpkg -i libssl1.0.0_1.0.1t-1+deb8u6_armhf.deb

And here, Domoticz will start normally.

Libssl.so.1.0.0 obsolete library on Raspbian Stretch, updated November 2017

Since the beginning of November 2017, the libssl.so.1.0.0 library seems to no longer be integrated into the Raspbian Strech repository. Here’s how to install the library. A big thank you to Guillaume for the tip.

We will already start by adding the library to the list of sources file. Open it

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

And add this line at the end of the file

deb http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/ jessie main contrib non-free rpi

Save it with CTRL + X, Y. Then run these two commands to install the library

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libssl1.0.0

And that’s it, everything should be in order

Access the Domoticz server from a web browser

Now that our server is ready, we can access it from any web browser, including from a tablet by entering the following URL:

http://IP_domoticz:8080

 

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