Help! New here

Configuration
1

So I don’t know much about Home Assistant because I had a co-worker/friend who set mine up and the whole nine yards. Well he is the “host” of my home assistant (if that makes sense) and I would like to change that since he no longer works with me and isn’t a friend anymore. Which means I don’t want him to basically have all access to my house. Is there a fairly easy way to do that? Do I have to create a whole new home assistant?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

2

uff, you’ve got some reading to do.
but start with changing your user passwords for homeassistant, router, etc.

3

Are you admin? If so, just delete his user. Change your password as well. This can be done from the Configuration/Users page on the sidebar. I.E. Click configurations, then click users. If your user name has user under it… then you need to log in to an administrator. If you don’t have access, you’d probably need to restart. Although there may be a way to adjust a users access levels when home assistant is off. I don’t remember if those files are binary or not.

4

So I looked at the users and it lists Home Assistant Cloud, myself (admin), Home Assistant Cast, and my husband (admin). That’s it. But my issue is if I want to view my home assistant not from the app then I go to mylastname.cwhas.com…the cwhas is something he created and it stands for cobwebb home automation services. So that’s what I mean when I say he’s the “host”. So it’s like it’s connected to him via this web address and I’m not sure how to get rid of it, if this makes any sense.

5

Get your own DNS hostname. You can use DuckDNS or you can purchase a domain name. Point it to your external IP address, or if your router supports logging in via some dynamic DNS service, you can do that…or just use DuckDNS.

Change your base_url: in your configuration yaml to point to your new hostname.

6

Yeah, anyways, he still needs the passwords at that point even if he has admin access to that host. He’ll be able to go there but he won’t be able to log into home assistant. Unless you haven’t changed the pw. I also recommend changing all the PW for your accounts in HA. Especially if he set it up.

7

Thank you…I just purchased a domain so I will try connecting it to my external IP address and changing the base url. Thanks again for the help!

8

A new domain only is not enough. If that guy knows your exteral WAN IP address, and had some services set up, he will always be able to access your installation.

These are some checklist items you could check:

  • Change the DNS name to a domain you own yourself and configure your instance accordingly
  • are there any additional user accounts configured? Or is it only one account? If he has his own account, delete it. If there’s just one account, change the password
  • check all add-on configurations if there are any services running that could allow him to connect to your instance. Change them accordingly
  • are there automations configured that notify him?
  • automated backups configured? If so, where is it stored?
9

Also check for things that could be accessed externally like ssh, vnc, remote desktop, or teamviewer and either change the passwords or uninstall/reinstall as necessary.