¶ Intro
We’re continuing where we left off after Part 2: Home Assistant Container.
In this Part 3, we’ll set up the MariaDB and InfluxDB containers which we’ll use to store the data from the Home Assistant recorder and history.
¶ Install MariaDB and InfluxDB containers
Continuing in the same trend as the previous two posts, we start of with the docker-compose.yaml config for our new containers.
The configuration for these containers looks as follows:
version: '3.0'
services:
[...]
homeassistant:
[...]
mariadb:
container_name: mariadb
image: mariadb
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "3306:3306/tcp"
environment:
- TZ=Europe/Brussels
- MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD}
- MYSQL_DATABASE=${MYSQL_HA_DATABASE}
- MYSQL_USER=${MYSQL_HA_USER}
- MYSQL_PASSWORD=${MYSQL_HA_PASSWORD}
volumes:
- /opt/mariadb/data:/var/lib/mysql
- /opt/mariadb/config/:/etc/mysql/conf.d
influxdb:
container_name: influxdb
image: influxdb
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "8086:8086/tcp" # So we can access the WebUI
environment:
- TZ=Europe/Brussels
- DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_MODE=setup
- DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_USERNAME=${INFLUXDB_USER}
- DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_PASSWORD=${INFLUXDB_PASSWORD}
- DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ORG=${INFLUXDB_ORG}
- DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_BUCKET=${INFLUXDB_BUCKET}
volumes:
- /opt/influxdb/data:/var/lib/influxdb2
- /opt/influxdb/config/:/etc/influxdb2
ulimits:
nofile:
soft: 32768
hard: 32768
¶ Environment variables
You’ll notice we added some environment variables in the configuration, such as ${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD}.
These placeholders ensure we don’t put sensitive data in our docker-compose.yaml. This is especially useful for when we want to back-up and/or distribute our Docker config in a Version Control System (VCS) like GitHub.
To provide a value for these environment variable, create a .env file in the same directory as the docker-compose.yaml file, i.e. /opt.
sudo nano .env
# Add secrets, see below
# Also grant our non-admin account to this file
# so we don't need sudo to edit in the future
sudo chown root:docker .env
sudo chmod g+w .env
The .env file would look like this. Make any modifications (like passwords!) here.
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=mariadbrootpassword
MYSQL_HA_DATABASE=ha_db
MYSQL_HA_USER=homeassistant
MYSQL_HA_PASSWORD=mariadbhapassword
INFLUXDB_USER=homeassistant
INFLUXDB_PASSWORD=influxhapassword
INFLUXDB_ORG=sequr
INFLUXDB_BUCKET=homeassistant
If you run the config check before creating the .env file, you’ll also be warned about this.
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yaml config
WARN[0000] The "MYSQL_HA_DATABASE" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARN[0000] The "MYSQL_HA_USER" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARN[0000] The "MYSQL_HA_PASSWORD" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARN[0000] The "INFLUXDB_USER" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARN[0000] The "INFLUXDB_PASSWORD" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARN[0000] The "INFLUXDB_ORG" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
WARN[0000] The "INFLUXDB_BUCKET" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
¶ Dependencies
In case we reboot our Docker system, we also want the Home Assistant container to wait for the MariaDB and InfluxDB container to be online before starting. This is to ensure the connection from HA to these systems doesn’t fail and no data is lost.
So add the following to the config entry to the homeassistant container:
[...]
homeassistant:
[...]
depends_on:
- mariadb
- influxdb
¶ Initial run
You can now run docker-compose up -d to install the MariaDB and InfluxDB containers.
You’ll also notice the Home Assistant container is recreated as its config has changed.
4 containers so far
¶ InfluxDB Token
Now that our InfluxDB container is running we’ll open the WebUI to grab a token. We’ll need this token later to grant Home Assistant access to our newly created bucket.
Open a browser and go to http://<ip.of.our.box>:8086 and login using the credentials you use in the .env file.
Login to InfluxDB
Go to the API Tokens menu and generate a new read/write token specifically for our Home Assistant bucket.
Creating a RW token for our homeassistant bucket
Click on the name of the token and a window will appear showing you the token. We’ll need this token in a later stage.
¶ Home Assistant configuration
With the containers up and running the first half of the job is done. We still need to tell Home Assistant about these new database.
For this, we will be adding our first Home Assistant configurations.
EDIT 2022-09-08
We’ll be editing our config via the terminal. If you prefer to do this in an online editor, have a look at Part 6 and then come back here ;)
cd /opt/homeassistant/config/
sudo nano configuration.yaml
You’ll see some config is already present.
# Loads default set of integrations. Do not remove.
default_config:
# Text to speech
tts:
- platform: google_translate
automation: !include automations.yaml
script: !include scripts.yaml
scene: !include scenes.yaml
Add the following config below it:
recorder:
db_url: !secret mariadb
purge_keep_days: 10 # default
history:
influxdb:
api_version: 2
ssl: false
host: !secret influxdb_host
port: 8086
token: !secret influxdb_token
organization: !secret influx_org
bucket: homeassistant
tags:
source: HomeAssistant
tags_attributes:
- friendly_name
default_measurement: units
ignore_attributes:
- icon
exclude: # Customise to fit your needs
entities:
- zone.home
domains:
- persistent_notification
- person
¶ More secrets
You’ll have noticed I made some secret references in the config above, like !secret mariadb.
Home Assistant also allows you to hide secrets from the configuration.yaml file so you can safely share it. Just like with the environment variables we used in our docker-compose.yaml, these are references to a value stored elsewhere. In this case, these are key-value pairs in a file named secrets.yaml located in the same folder as the configuration.yaml.
So let’s create this file and add our secrets to it.
cd /opt/homeassistant/config
sudo nano secrets.yaml
Notice this file already exists and contains an example entry:
# Use this file to store secrets like usernames and passwords.
# Learn more at https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/configuration/secrets/
some_password: welcome
Remove this example, and add your own secrets. Make sure you match the configuration of the .env file.
mariadb: "mysql://homeassistant:mariadbhapassword@<ip.of.our.box>:3306/ha_db?charset=utf8mb4"
influxdb_host: "<ip.of.our.box>"
influxdb_token: "influxdbtoken"
influx_org: "sequr"
Since our Home Assistant container uses the host network, it cannot find the MariaDB and InfluxDB containers through their hostname. That’s why we make use of the port forwards and refer to them via <ip.of.our.box>.
¶ Restart
After saving the files, open the Home Assistant web interface and go to Developer Tools > YAML. Click Check Configuration to make sure you didn’t make any typos are made a mistake in spacing.
Our config is validated
If you get a green “Configuration valid!” you’re good and you can press the Restartbutton on the right to restart Home Assistant, which will apply all changes we made to the configuration.yaml file.
¶ Manage Portainer from within Home Assistant
One thing we’ll want to do fairly often once we start adding add-ons is having an option to quickly have a look at them without needing to open extra browser windows.
For this, we’ll make use of [iframe Panel][iframe]’s. This integration will add additional panels to the Home Assistant sidebar, which will open an application of our choosing within the HA dashboard.
To add an iframe for Portainer, add the following code to the configuration.yaml file:
panel_iframe:
portainer:
title: Portainer
url: "https://192.168.10.106:9443/#!/2/docker/containers"
icon: mdi:docker
require_admin: true
Check your configuration again and restart Home Assistant. Once Home Assistant is back online, you’ll find the Docker logo in the sidebar and clicking it will open Portainer in the dashboard view.
Portainer-ception
And that wraps it up for part 3 of the Home Assistant Container series.
Next we’ll add some useful add-ons to Home Assistant, like the Mosquitto MQTT brokerand Node-RED.
PS: the eagle-eyed may have noticed an additional container in my last screenshot. I also added adminer to my toolkit. Adminer, formerly known as phpMyAdmin, can be used to connect to and manage the MariaDB database.
If you want to copy my config, add the following service to docker-compose.yaml:
adminer:
container_name: adminer
image: adminer
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "8080:8080/tcp"
depends_on:
- mariadb
[iframe]: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/panel_iframe/ “iframe Panel integration