Home Assistant Container Part 2: Home Assistant Container

Intro ¶

We’re continuing where we left off after Part 1: Install Debian, Docker and Portainer.

In this Part 2, we’ll setup our basic Home Assistant Container using docker-compose.

Install Home Assistant Container ¶

docker-compose.yaml ¶

This part of our setup is actually fairly easy.

As far as docker-compose goes, all we need to do is follow the HA Container documentation.

On our Docker machine, we add a config entry for Home Assistant Container in our docker-compose.yaml. Add this below the services: key and watch out for indentation.

cd /opt
sudo nano docker-compose.yaml # or file editor of choice
# Edit file, see below
# Save and Close via Ctrl+O and Ctrl+X

version: '3.0'

services:
  [...]
  homeassistant:
    container_name: homeassistant
    image: "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable"
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Brussels
    volumes:
      - /opt/homeassistant/config:/config
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    privileged: true
    network_mode: host

Check config ¶

No errors or warnings :)

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yaml config

name: opt
services:
  homeassistant:
    container_name: homeassistant
    environment:
      TZ: Europe/Brussels
    image: ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable
    network_mode: host
    privileged: true
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
    - type: bind
      source: /opt/homeassistant/config
      target: /config
      bind:
        create_host_path: true
    - type: bind
      source: /etc/localtime
      target: /etc/localtime
      read_only: true
      bind:
        create_host_path: true
  portainer:
    container_name: portainer
    environment:
      TZ: Europe/Brussels
    image: portainer/portainer-ce
    networks:
      default: null
    ports:
    - mode: ingress
      target: 9000
      published: "9000"
      protocol: tcp
    restart: unless-stopped
    stdin_open: true
    tty: true
    volumes:
    - type: bind
      source: /etc/localtime
      target: /etc/localtime
      read_only: true
      bind:
        create_host_path: true
    - type: bind
      source: /var/run/docker.sock
      target: /var/run/docker.sock
      bind:
        create_host_path: true
    - type: bind
      source: /opt/portainer/data
      target: /data
      bind:
        create_host_path: true
networks:
  default:
    name: opt_default

Launch container ¶

All that’s left to do is create the config directory we mentioned in the config and run docker-compose.

cd /opt
sudo mkdir -p homeassistant/config
docker-compose up -d

Docker will now pull the Home Assistant image and will set everything up. I hope you have a coffee or tea nearby, as this may take a while…

Screenshot of terminal showing Docker pulling and starting the Home Assistant Container image — Up and running in 35s, not bad :)

Set up Home Assistant ¶

Now that the container is up and running, we still need to set up our Home Assistant instance itself.

Open a browser and go to http://<ip.of.our.box>:8123.

Home Assistant inital setup — Let’s set up Home Assistant

Pick a username and password for your Home Assistant account. This account will also be the “admin”.

Next, go through setting up your Home Zone and what data you’re willing to share with Nabu Casa to improve Home Assistant. During the setup process, Home Assistant will even show you devices it has already discovered and which you can integrate from the get-go.

Once the setup is done, you end up at your Home Assistant Dashboard. If you configured any devices in the previous step, they will be displayed on the dashboard.

Finishing thoughts ¶

In Part 1 I mentioned I may be adding containers for MariaDB and InfluxDB. I didn’t cover this yet in this episode but I will in a future post, so keep an eye out ;)