Which solution for Ip-Symcon (with ELV device) on a Hyper-V guest OS

IP-Symcon (English)
1

I’m running a windows 2008 R2 server on which I have deployed a ‚Home Automation‘ Hyper-V guest.

Currently I have installed IP-Symcon on my host system but I would like to use IP-Symcon in this guest OS (which is also windows Server 2008)

But what to do with the USB devices (FHZ device and ZWAVE dongle)? You can’t use USB devices in a Hyper-V guest OS when you are not logged in.

Does anyone have experience with this situation and can advise me on a possible solution? I’ve read about devices like the Sharkoon USB server, but do they work together with the ELV and ZWAVE devices so they can be used in the Hyper-V guest?

Regards,
Peter

2

Helmut and I managed to solder a Xport device server on the back of a tricklestar z-wave USB dongle. Working perfect for almost a year now. The Com port redirector software which provides the serial port over Ethernet to the O/S does work when not logged in to my 2008r2.

3

I’m not familiar with the xport device and can’t find it at my local supplier. And I’m also not very handy in soldering this stuff myself :frowning:

I can however find the Sharkoon USB LAN Port 400 Giga. But there is not much info if this kind of print server devices also work with domotica hardware.

Perhaps I’ll give it a go and see if it works.

4

In my environment the z-wave Adapters don’t work with the USB Lan Adapters.
Xport is the only option to bring the z-wave devices into the LAN.

5

Which USB LAN adapters have you tried that failed? So I won’t make the same mistake :slight_smile:

6

Peter, have you ever thought about using a open source VM system which is able to provide defined usb devices to the guests?

Try this: https://www.virtualbox.org/

I have a Linux running as guest with a build environment for „Ethersex“ and I’m using a AVRISP MK II programming device (usb) on my Windows host. I can connect and disconnect the device at any time. It’s like unplugging the device in one system and plugging it in the other. It works like charm…

7

Thanks for the tip, Marcus. But I’m quite used to Hyper-V and have no troubles using it (apart from USB). So I’m somewhat reluctant to dive into something new pure for the lack of USB support.

If I can’t find a USB-LAN server that works I can always use the web service of IP-Symcon, as I’m running my own software for Home Automation anyway which only uses the web service of Ip-Symcon and nothing more.

But I read some people who were having succes with Silex server and Belkin stuff. So perhaps there is still hope :slight_smile:

8

I tried the 3 or 4 different devices: Silex, Sharkoon, Fritzbox and one I cannot remember, but I think it was Belkin.
With most of the devices the z-wave stick just produced write errors after a couple of hours, Sharkoon was running ok with a very old driver, until I discovered that the driver caused my server network throughput to get close to zero whenver the USB device server was sending or receiving. I recall there were also reconnection issues after reboot, as well as the fact that the software was not desigend to run as a service. Overall just crap.

You really better look into the Xport solution, it is only 4 wires and removing 1 SMD resistor if I am not mistaken.

The device we used was this one:Serial to Ethernet Networking - Embedded Ethernet Device Server - XPort - Lantronix

All you need to connect is RX, TX +5V and GND.

9

To you it may seem simple to use the xport solution, but I’m a software developer not a hardware guy :slight_smile: So for me it’s not that simple and I dare not take the risk to break my FHX1000PC device (or ZWAVE stick) in adapting it for use with the xport device :frowning:

10

Fair enough, your call anyways. But I am also not a hardware guy, once you know which wires to connect where it is really really simple.