Home Assistant Core remote access

[XVBinh]

Hello,
I’m new to home assistant. I have just installed Home Assistant Core. How can I access HA from outside my home network? I saw in HA os you can just add duckdns as a add on but how can I do it in core were there are no add ons.

[mwav3 (Tim)]

I run without addons, and can access Home Assistant two different ways. You can use one or both depending on what you need.

The first is a reverse proxy. There are several, but nginx is the one I use. There is a docker program called “swag”. It combines duckdns, letsencrypt, fail2ban, and nginx all in one docker container. Here is a setup guide

Nginx Reverse Proxy Set Up Guide – Docker

In light of the recent “hacking” stories, last week I set myself the goal of implementing Nginx. I read most related posts in this forum and elsewhere, but was unable to find a step by step guide for “enthusiasts” with limited it skills. Therefore I proceeded to do it the hard way: read, trial and error. Regretfully the forum was of no use as some of the individuals with “apparent subject matter experience” chose to offer condescending advice with no real benefit or substance. I do, however, w…

Another alternative is a VPN, like Wireguard. I wrote up a post about it here

Wireguard Container

I see Wireguard is available as an official add-on for hassio, but haven’t seen any guides on how to set it up if you are running Home Assistant Core/container/unsupervised. If you are running a supervised version of Home Assistant and can use the official addon, I would definitely recomend that route and follow the guide here - Home Assistant Community Add-on: WireGuard . If you are running a Home Assistant version without add-ons, this guide can help you still get Wireguard running along wit…

Those options can be configured without docker, but they are much harder to setup without it. The container versions have all the required dependencies and updates are much easier. VPN is more secure, but some integrations, like Google Home and Smartthings, need an accessible https url to work and need a proxy. I use the android and wife uses the homeassistant ios app- they need an https url to work which is setup with the reverse proxy. If using the VPN, the VPN would have to run on the phones all the time, and would slow up everything as my home internet upload speed is very slow.

I run both the VPN and proxy because I use the VPN to access deeper parts of the config I dont want accessible through a url, like portainer or my homeassistant config directory. I use the proxy to access homeassistant itself, with two factor authentication on.

Whatever you setup, you want it secure. If you aren’t sure or dont feel comfortable, you can setup the nabu casa subscription service for remote access for a small monthly fee. See this post about making sure you have a secure setup if you do it yourself.

Securing Your Home Assistant Instance

I was reading a post about a security issue on another home automation platform and was going to provide a few links in the thread as people often read these threads and look for advice on how to ensure they are secure. I found my own past post on the issue lacking and the HA docs somewhat lacking or the information was really dispersed. This is my attempt to put a guide together and collect the information in one location. Note: I am far from a security expert and I have no formal training …

[XVBinh]

I don’t know if that is going to work. I’m running dietpi os without docker. Do you have another recommendation without docker?

[Tinkerer (aka DubhAd on GitHub)]

This guide is agnostic of how you run HA.

The TL/DR is:

1. Install something to keep your dynamic DNS hostname up to date
2. Install and configure something to generate SSL certificates for your hostname (dehydrated or certbot)
3. Decide whether you’re going to do SSL in a proxy server (good choice) or directly in HA (maybe not a good choice)
4. Install and configure your chosen proxy server
5. Configure HA for the reverse proxy
6. Set up your port forwarding and test it all