Home Assistant on TrueNAS not visible in local network (no "Host Network" option available)

Installation
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Hi everyone,
I’ve run into an issue with my Home Assistant setup on TrueNAS SCALE, and I could really use some advice from people who’ve dealt with networking inside TrueNAS apps or Docker.

:gear: My Setup

  • TrueNAS SCALE (latest version)
  • Home Assistant installed as an App (from the TrueNAS catalog)
  • iPhone with HomeKit integration attempt
  • Home Assistant is running fine locally on TrueNAS — I can open the UI from the TrueNAS host IP and port 8123.
  • Guest Wi-Fi is disabled on my router.
  • AP isolation is OFF, so devices should see each other.
  • My iPhone can ping the TrueNAS IP directly.

:jigsaw: The Problem

Home Assistant is not discoverable from my iPhone / Home app when trying to add it via HomeKit Bridge integration.

After some digging, I found that:

  • HomeKit uses Bonjour/mDNS (UDP 5353) and sometimes SSDP multicast. These protocols often fail if the container uses NAT or bridge networking instead of host mode. It looks like the Home Assistant app in TrueNAS is running inside an internal Docker network, not directly on my LAN.

Normally, the fix would be to enable “Host network mode”, which exposes the container directly to the LAN.
However:

  • The official TrueNAS UI doesn’t provide a “Host Network” checkbox for built-in apps.
    I found that this option does exist for Custom Apps, so I converted Home Assistant into a Custom App to gain access to its YAML configuration.
    Unfortunately, even after conversion, I couldn’t make it work — I tried adding network_mode: host manually in the YAML under the home-assistant service, but TrueNAS either ignored it or refused to deploy the app.

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:speech_balloon: What I Need Help With

  1. Is there a proper or supported way to run Home Assistant in host network mode on TrueNAS SCALE?
  2. Does TrueNAS actually support network_mode: host for Custom Apps, or is this feature limited internally?
  3. If it’s not supported — is there any workaround (like manual Docker deployment or mDNS bridge) that can make HA discoverable for HomeKit and local integrations?

Everything works perfectly — except HomeKit and local discovery.
I just need Home Assistant to be visible in my local network as if it were running directly on a physical device, not isolated behind TrueNAS Docker networking.

Thanks in advance for any help!

1 Like
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You have to create a bridge network in the TrueNAS for your network card even if it initially only has one member your physical card