Docker Installation on ARMv7 not working

Hi,

I wanted to run homegear/Docker on an Odroid SBC with latest archlinux OS to control my homematic devices with a CUL stick. Processor/Architecture is: Quad-Core Samsung Exynos - ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l) and the board is equipped with 2GB of RAM.

So the problem I face is, that when trying to start the docker container with the stable or nightly image, a lot of errors occur, and this is because of lots of files missing inside (I compared to another docker installation on my old raspberry-3:

  • /etc/homegear.config
  • /var/lib/homegear.data
  • /usr/bin/homegear*

So my question: is ARMv7 no longer supported or what can be the root cause for the missing binaries and config templates? Maybe @sathya or other devs have an idea?

Thanks!

Hi @homedev ,

armhf packages are still there, there is a dependency problem with Debian Trixie though for armhf. It is solved now and new packages are being build.

In the meantime, the Docker images are now using Debian Bookworm again.

So it should work again now.

Cheers,

Sathya

1 Like

Hi @sathya,

thanks a lot for the fast response and fix.

I will try tomorrow and give feedback.

Meanwhile a second question: https://doc.homegear.eu/ gives me an 403 Forbidden error, no docs can be read online. Is this WiP or can it be fixed - that would be great!

Best regards,
homedev

Hi @sathya ,
now the armhf docker image is complete. First it did not come up properly, but after reducing to the minimum services it started on my armhf board with 2GB of RAM:

sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ enocean.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/#[CUL]/[CUL]/’ homematicbidcos.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/#id = My-CUL/id = My-CUL/’ homematicbidcos.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/#default = true/default = true/’ homematicbidcos.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/#deviceType = cul/deviceType = cul/’ homematicbidcos.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/#device = /dev/ttyACM0/device = /dev/ttyUSB0/’ homematicbidcos.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/#responseDelay = 95/responseDelay = 95/’ homematicbidcos.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ homematicwired.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ insteon.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ intertechno.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ knx.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ kodi.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ max.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ m-bus.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ miscellaneous.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ sonos.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ zigbee.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/moduleEnabled = true/moduleEnabled = false/’ z-wave.conf

cd etc/
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/# runAsUser = homegear/runAsUser = homegear/’ main.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/# runAsGroup = homegear/runAsGroup = homegear/’ main.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/^enableUPnP = true/enableUPnP = false/’ main.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/^enableNodeBlue = true/enableNodeBlue = false/’ main.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/^ipcThreadCount = 100/ipcThreadCount = 10/’ main.conf
sudo sed -i -r ‘s/^ipcServerMaxConnections = 50/ipcServerMaxConnections = 20/’ main.conf

Another thing is, that after start there is a “find” process running for round about 3 minutes until homegear starts inside the container. Why does it take so long and what is it looking for?

Hi @homedev,

I also reduced the number of threads used in the default configuration now. It will be applied in the next version.

The find sets permissions on the Homegear directories and files, because otherwise, Homegear wouldn’t work correctly.

Cheers,

Sathya

Hi @sathya,

today I tried to re-install homegear from scratch on an armv7 device, but again it is not working.
From docker logs:
Attaching to homegear
homegear | id: ‘homegear’: no such user
homegear | id: ‘homegear’: no such user
homegear | cp: cannot stat ‘/etc/homegear.config/': No such file or directory
homegear | cp: cannot stat '/var/lib/homegear.data/
’: No such file or directory
homegear | Certificate request self-signature ok
homegear | subject=C=AU, ST=Some-State, O=Internet Widgits Pty Ltd
homegear | Setting directory permissions on /etc/homegear…
homegear | Setting ownership on /var/log/homegear…
homegear | chown: invalid user: ‘homegear:homegear’
homegear | Setting directory permissions on /var/log/homegear…
homegear | Setting file permissions on /var/log/homegear…
homegear | Setting directory permissions on /var/lib/homegear…
homegear | Setting file permissions on /var/lib/homegear…
homegear | Setting file permissions on /var/lib/homegear/scripts…
homegear | find: ‘/var/lib/homegear/scripts’: No such file or directory
homegear | /start.sh: line 127: /etc/homegear/homegear-start.sh: No such file or directory
homegear | /start.sh: line 128: /usr/bin/homegear: No such file or directory
homegear | Waiting for Homegear to start…
homegear | Waiting for Homegear to start…
homegear | Waiting for Homegear to start…
homegear | Waiting for Homegear to start…

The binary and startskript do not exists in the container:

root@homegear:/# ls -la /usr/bin/h*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 67288 May  9  2025 /usr/bin/hardlink
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 67300 Jun  4  2025 /usr/bin/head
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 67296 Jun  4  2025 /usr/bin/hostid
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 13784 Oct 11  2024 /usr/bin/hostname


root@homegear:/# ls -la /etc/homegear/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan  3 09:51 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Jan  3 09:51 ..
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 1870 Jan  3 09:51 homegear.crt
-r-------- 1 root root 3268 Jan  3 09:51 homegear.key
-r-------- 1 root root   43 Jan  3 09:51 nodeBlueCredentialKey.txt

Is it a build problem again, or did i do something wrong?

Update: seems to not only affect armhf builds, just tested on a spare Raspberry Pi4b which has aarch64 architecture, same here - /usr/bin/homegear does not exist

Hallo @homedev,

sollte in wenigen Minuten wieder gehen - der Build- und Repository-Server hatte Probleme mit dem Dateisystem. Jetzt läuft aber alles wieder.

Viele Grüße

Sathya

Super - vielen Dank!