How to add custom plugins to Docker?

Configuration
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1

Previously I used Home Assistant Core, installed via pip. The config was in in my ~/.homeassistant directory, and custom plugins under ~/.homeassistant/custom_components. Since Core was deprecated, I moved to the Docker installation, mapping ~/.homeassistant to /config. The configuration is read by HA fine, but it doesn’t find the custom components. How to make this work?

2

It should work as it is.
Do you see messages in the log? No softlinks?

To check what HA sees, you can do:

❯ docker exec -it home-assistant bash
theia:/config# ls custom_components/
androidtv.tar.bz2        caldav                   epsonworkforce           ideal_led                lovelace_gen             onkyo                    solaredge_modbus_multi   toshl
apache_kafka             caldav_todo.tar.bz2      exchangerate-api         ideal_led_ble            luci_config              openrgb                  solcast_solar            tuya_local
average                  circadian_lighting       exchangeratesio          irm_kmi                  luci_openvpn.tar.bz2     recycle_app              spook                    volvooncall
bambu_lab                cololight                frigate                  jellyfin                 mediabrowser             remote_command_line      spook_inverse            wundergroundpws
bermuda                  epic_games               hacs                     jim_mobile               meross_cloud             ring_remote              state_automate
browser_mod              epic_games.tar.bz2       homeassistant-niceflors  long_term_statistics     mopidy                   smarthomesec             tapo_control
3

Folder / file permissions incorrect?

4

This might be of interest…

5

I found out the problem. TL;DR: it’s really difficult to work with Docker.

My previous HA integration had several dependencies here and there, everything needs to be mounted to the container. I also tried running HA as a user instead of root to avoid it cluttering my filesystem with files owned by root, but then it can’t install Python dependencies.

My command line integrations are still broken, I’ll fix them some other time.

6

Here’s my docker-compose.yml in case it’s useful. My custom components are cloned from GitHub and live in my home directory.

services:
  homeassistant:
    container_name: homeassistant
    image: "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable"
    volumes:
      - /home/pi/home-assistant:/config
      - /home/pi/ESPSomfy-RTS-HA/custom_components/espsomfy_rts:/config/custom_components/espsomfy_rts
      - /home/pi/connectlife-ha/custom_components/connectlife:/config/custom_components/connectlife
      - /home/pi/adaptive-lighting/custom_components/adaptive_lighting:/config/custom_components/adaptive_lighting
      - /home/pi/hacs_waste_collection_schedule/custom_components/waste_collection_schedule:/config/custom_components/waste_collection_schedule
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - zigbee2mqtt
    privileged: true
    network_mode: host

  mqtt:
    image: eclipse-mosquitto:2.0
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - '/home/pi/mosquitto-data:/mosquitto'
    network_mode: host
    command: 'mosquitto -c /mosquitto-no-auth.conf'

  zigbee2mqtt:
    container_name: zigbee2mqtt
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - mqtt
    image: koenkk/zigbee2mqtt
    volumes:
      - /home/pi/zigbee2mqtt-data:/app/data
      - /run/udev:/run/udev:ro
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Berlin
    devices:
      - /dev/ttyUSB0:/dev/ttyUSB0

  nginx:
    container_name: nginx
    hostname: nginx
    image: nginx
    volumes:
      - /home/pi/nginx-conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
      - /home/pi/ssl:/etc/ssl/private:ro
    network_mode: host
    restart: unless-stopped
8

dependencies? docker brings dependencies so you shouldnt need to install anything

Same here. What dependencies? you dont install things in built docker containers.
you can use “user” to change user for HA container. This is a bit of a mess with docker. Sometimes is GID:UID and sometimes GUID:G??(forgot) but yeah mess. In this case its “user” like below

  homeassistant:
    container_name: homeassistant
    hostname: homeassistant
    user: 1050:1050

This maps to user on the host system. Create user/group there and assign correct system permission.

permissions issue or something…something…double quote instead of single.
For some reason command line on host is slightly different than command line in HA docker. I think it was something about the quotes. It always baffeled me and I didnt document the problem or fix so sorry cant help. Just know it is either your file permissions or some minor issue like double instead of single quote

9

Maybe I used the wrong word with “dependencies”. I have a lot of symlinks pointing to different locations. I removed some of them (moved the files in the right place instead), for others I had to mount the targets of the symlinks into the container.

As for the command line integrations, obviously these run commands on my machine. If the commands are not available inside the container, the integration won’t work. Worse, if the command is intended to do something with the computer (for example, calculating free memory or storage space), it won’t ever work inside a container. Probably ssh-ing into the machine would work.

10

Docker container should be treated like remote PC. SSH to host to run command.

Separately, macvlan is best for networking although more complex to setup. After you understand concept it is quite simple. My opinion