It’s been a while since we installed a service in our Build Your Own Homelab series, so today we look at a completely different service to our normal ones. Although security is important, and accessing our network via VPN is probably necessary, let’s take a break and look at a service that can help us manage our plants at home as well as be a treasure trove of information and tips for those with (and especially those without) green fingers.
Step 1: Getting the Helper Script
You guessed it, we are again using the amazing helper-scripts.com. Go to the community website and search for Plant-it. There should be only one result, an LXC container. That is the one we need. Click on it and get the install command:
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/community-scripts/ProxmoxVE/main/ct/plant-it.sh)"Please take note of the warnings and information on the page. Firstly, Plant-it uses Adoptium JDK. We are not going into detail about what Adoptium is, but this might take a while to install. As such, our creation of the Plant-It LXC will take some time. This is normal and will add about 4 or 5 minutes to the install depending on the hardware you are using. Secondly, and more importantly, once the script finishes and gives you the IP address to access Plant-it, the service still needs about 2 minutes to start up. So, if you try to access Plant-it in this time, it will seem like it isn’t working. Again, just be patient and wait a few minutes before attempting to reinstall the LCX container.
Step 2: Install the LXC Container with Plant-It
With the helper script ready, open and log in to your Proxmox installation. In the left navigation window, expand Datacenter, and then select the Proxmox server you want to install Plant-it on. In the middle navigation pane, select 
. Paste the command and press enter to start installation.
The first screen will be a confirmation making sure that we want to install Plant-it. Press enter. The second will again be our settings. You are welcome to select Advanced if you wish, we are just sticking to the default and pressing enter. If you have multiple storage disks in your Proxmox Server, you will be asked to select which disk you wish to install to.
The install will now start. It will take quite some time to complete, so please be patient. Once done, you will get a notification of the address where Plant-it can be accessed.
Step 3: Log in and configure
Once installed, you will get the address where Plant-it can be accessed. In our case, the address is:
http://192.168.1.8:3000Port 3000 is also the port that was stated on the helper-script page as the main port to access Plant-it. However, it is necessary to know that two services were installed. The first was on port 3000 – this is the front end. The server was installed separately and runs on port 8080.
Access Plant-it with the provided address and the first screen screen you will see will be the server selection screen. Enter the IP address of the LXC container, but on port 8080, so in our case:
http://192.168.1.8:8080This will connect to the server and ask for a username and password. Seeing as we have not added one, select to create a new user and fill in the details. You will then be able to access Plant-it.
Conclusion
We have installed an LXC Container running the server and front-end for Plant-it. Tomorrow we will look at installing Plant-it via a Docker container with the help of Portainer. Either way, take note of the server URL as we are going to be adding a reserve proxy as well to allow access from outside of our network. Stay tuned for the next instalment in the series!