ha-ssh

Home Assistant SSH Operations

Provides access to a Home Assistant OS (HAOS) instance running on a Raspberry Pi 4 at homeassistant.local.

Connection

ssh [email protected]

Key-based auth is already configured. Use ssh -o ConnectTimeout=5 for quick connectivity checks.

Environment Constraints

The SSH add-on runs an Alpine-based shell with these constraints:

• No apt/dpkg — package management via apk only (within the container)
• No rsync — file transfers use tar piped over SSH
• The ha CLI is the primary interface for HA operations
• HA config lives at /config/ on the Pi

HA CLI Reference

# Core operations
ha core info           # Version, status, IP
ha core restart        # Restart HA core
ha core check          # Validate config (do this before restart)
ha core logs           # View recent logs
ha core logs --follow  # Tail logs

# Backups
ha backups new --name "$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)"
ha backups list

# Add-ons
ha addons list
ha addons logs <slug>
ha addons restart <slug>

# Supervisor / system
ha supervisor info
ha os info

Config Management

The local repo at ~/src/ha-ops/ mirrors /config/ on the Pi.

# Pull from Pi → local
~/src/ha-ops/scripts/pull.sh

# Push local → Pi (runs ha core check after)
~/src/ha-ops/scripts/deploy.sh

# Validate without deploying
ssh [email protected] 'ha core check'

Common Tasks

Check HA version and update availability:

ssh [email protected] 'ha core info'

Inspect a config file:

ssh [email protected] 'cat /config/configuration.yaml'

Edit config inline (for small changes):

ssh [email protected] 'cat > /config/automations.yaml' << 'EOF'
- id: ...
EOF

Check entity state via REST API:

# Requires a long-lived access token stored in secrets.yaml or env
curl -s http://homeassistant.local:8123/api/states/<entity_id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"

Check InfluxDB add-on: The InfluxDB add-on is available at a0d7b954-influxdb:8086 from within HA.

Integrations in This Instance

• Lutron Caseta — smart lighting (certs in /config/, private key gitignored)
• Bambu Lab — 3D printer monitoring (HACS component)
• HACS — Home Assistant Community Store
• InfluxDB — metrics add-on
• Zigbee — device network (database gitignored)

Secrets

/config/secrets.yaml holds all secrets; reference them in YAML as !secret <key>. Never echo or log secret values. The Lutron private key (lutron_caseta-*-key.pem) is also gitignored.

Safe Operation Checklist

Before restarting HA core:

1. Run ha core check to validate config
2. Optionally create a backup: ha backups new
3. Then restart: ha core restart
4. Monitor: ha core logs --follow