HAOS Tips

Just some tips I gathered over time. All in one easily reachable place so I can share it wherever I want.
Some of it is just for me to copy and paste from :)

HAOS Tips

Repair Supervisor

In rare cases the supervisor or CLI container/image can get corrupted. This can help restore that.
Needs to be run in a OS level shell and only if you know what you're doing and have backups.

systemctl stop hassos-supervisor.service && docker stop hassio_supervisor hassio_cli
docker system prune -af
systemctl start hassos-supervisor.service

Run commands in a container/addon

This is useful to test shell_command/command_line or similar things which run in the homeassistant container.
Addons are docker containers so I might refer to them either way.
Please also read the background here.

Prerequisites

You need the Advanced SSH Addon with disabled protection mode
Make sure to restart the addon for it to take effect. This gives you access to the docker command.

Listing containers/addons

Use docker ps to list containers/addons

docker ps --format '{{.Names}}'

Or just docker ps which is more verbose

docker ps

To also show stopped containers/addons

docker ps -a

The output can look similar to this

# docker ps --format '{{.Names}}'
hassio_supervisor
addon_a0d7b954_sqlite-web
addon_a0d7b954_nodered
addon_core_configurator
addon_core_samba
addon_core_ssh
addon_a0d7b954_vscode
addon_a0d7b954_glances
addon_a0d7b954_ssh
addon_core_mosquitto
hassio_multicast
hassio_audio
hassio_dns
hassio_cli
homeassistant
hassio_observer

Entering containers

To now enter a running container you can use something like this

# Use sh if bash doesn't work
docker exec -ti homeassistant bash

Use CTRL+D or exit to get out again.

Running simple commands

To just run a simple command you can do something like this

docker exec homeassistant cat /OFFICIAL_IMAGE

Checking container/addon mounts

Depends on information above.

This can be useful to check where an addon stores its configuration.

docker inspect homeassistant | jq .[].Mounts

Checking addon port bindings

Depends on information above.

docker inspect addon_core_mosquitto | jq .[].HostConfig."PortBindings"

Checking used space

I have a separate article about how to check this here.

Disable DNS fallback

ha dns options --fallback=false

# To also set the server(s)
ha dns options --servers dns://DNSSERVERIPHERE --fallback=false

# Might not be needed
ha dns restart

Enable safe-mode

The HA CLI provides

ha core restart --safe-mode

but this might not always work. In such cases you can do this.

Via addon

touch /homeassistant/safe-mode

Via OS shell.

touch /mnt/data/supervisor/homeassistant/safe-mode

When core starts and finds this file it will trigger safe-mode and remove it.

Extract mount/share credentials

HAOS stores the credentials in /mnt/data/supervisor/.mounts_credentials/SHARENAME. You can extract them like this.
Via Advanced SSH addon with disabled protection mode

docker run --rm -ti -v /:/host:ro alpine sh -c "grep -sR . /host/mnt/data/supervisor/.mounts_credentials/"

Via OS shell

grep -sR . /mnt/data/supervisor/.mounts_credentials/

Install packages

HAOS itself has no package manager but most addons are based on Alpine and it has many packages.

For example

apk add gdu
gdu /

Get a OS level shell

I trust you have good reasons for needing this. Proceed at your own risk.
Please also read the background here.

Through Advanced SSH addon

You can gain access to the OS' CLI through the Advanced SSH addon like this

docker run --rm --privileged --pid=host -it alpine:latest nsenter -t 1 -m -u -n -i sh

Use CTRL+D or exit to get out again.

You need the Advanced SSH addon with disabled protection mode (restart it after disabling it) to get access to the docker command.

I recommend this way because it's very simple to enable/disable, you can use a proper SSH client and you can just copy & paste commands.
Typing all the commands in via keyboard & monitor is quite cumbersome, especially because you cannot change the keyboard layout.

Developer SSH

This requires logging in via developer SSH access on port 22222.

Keyboard & monitor / Virtual Machine

Use a keyboard and monitor or the display/serial/terminal your hypervisor provides to access the OS.
You might have to enter login when inside the HA CLI. Use root as username if you're asked.
I have instructions on how to set up a serial terminal with Proxmox VE here.

Misc

Grab backup key

In case your need to grab your backup key from a old system, etc.
Via addon

grep "password" /homeassistant/.storage/backup