This guide has been updated to use the much easier method introduced in version 0.116, if you are running an older version of Home Assistant than this you can check the edit history of this post for the old instructions.
Note: this guide assumes you have copied the backup off your home assistant server before the problem occurred. So backup regularly and copy the backup eleswhere regularly. There are addons to do this automatically for you, see the list here:
https://www.home-assistant.io/common-tasks/os#copying-your-backups-to-another-location
If you have not done this, all is not lost. You may be able to recover the backup but it is beyond the scope of this guide.
1) Fix the issue that caused the crash.
There is little point restoring if it is just going to happen again.
For hardware this may be easy, e.g. replace a pi power supply or SD card.
For configuration issues, if you know what caused the crash you can make a copy of your backup and extract the relevant file using winrar, 7zip or some other compression software that allows decompressing .tar files. Edit the file and return it to the correct place in the backup. If you’ve done something incorrectly you still have the original backup to try again. Never edit this, only edit a copy. Alternatively, restore a backup that is older than when the issue was introduced.
Should you have protected your backup with a password, you may notice that you can’t extract individual files from it. With a little python script (kudos to @Taapie for writing the script → here) you can decrypt your snapshot and then extract individual files as explained above.
This requires Python 3 and the cryptography package.
Create a file called decrypt.py in the same directory as the .tar file you want to decrypt with the following content:
Click to expand!
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys
import getopt
import hashlib
import tarfile
import glob
import os
import shutil
from pathlib import Path
from cryptography.hazmat.backends import default_backend
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.ciphers import (
Cipher,
algorithms,
modes,
)
def _password_to_key(password):
password = password.encode()
for _ in range(100):
password = hashlib.sha256(password).digest()
return password[:16]
def _generate_iv(key, salt):
temp_iv = key + salt
for _ in range(100):
temp_iv = hashlib.sha256(temp_iv).digest()
return temp_iv[:16]
class SecureTarFile:
def __init__(self, filename, password):
self._file = None
self._name = Path(filename)
self._tar = None
self._tar_mode = "r|gz"
self._aes = None
self._key = _password_to_key(password)
self._decrypt = None
def __enter__(self):
self._file = self._name.open("rb")
cbc_rand = self._file.read(16)
self._aes = Cipher(
algorithms.AES(self._key),
modes.CBC(_generate_iv(self._key, cbc_rand)),
backend=default_backend(),
)
self._decrypt = self._aes.decryptor()
self._tar = tarfile.open(fileobj=self, mode=self._tar_mode)
return self._tar
def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_value, traceback):
if self._tar:
self._tar.close()
if self._file:
self._file.close()
def read(self, size = 0):
return self._decrypt.update(self._file.read(size))
@property
def path(self):
return self._name
@property
def size(self):
if not self._name.is_file():
return 0
return round(self._name.stat().st_size / 1_048_576, 2) # calc mbyte
def _extract_tar(filename):
_dirname = '.'.join(filename.split('.')[:-1])
try:
shutil.rmtree('_dirname')
except FileNotFoundError:
pass
print(f'Extracting {filename}...')
_tar = tarfile.open(name=filename, mode="r")
_tar.extractall(path=_dirname)
return _dirname
def _extract_secure_tar(filename, password):
_dirname = '.'.join(filename.split('.')[:-2])
print(f'Extracting secure tar {filename.split("/")[-1]}...')
try:
with SecureTarFile(filename, password) as _tar:
_tar.extractall(path=_dirname)
except tarfile.ReadError:
print("Unable to extract SecureTar - maybe your password is wrong or the tar is not password encrypted?")
sys.exit(5)
return _dirname
def print_usage():
print(f'{sys.argv[0]} -i <inputfile> -p <password>')
def main():
_inputfile = None
_password=None
try:
opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:],"hi:p:")
except getopt.GetoptError:
print_usage()
sys.exit(2)
for opt, arg in opts:
if opt == '-h':
print_usage()
sys.exit()
elif opt in ("-i"):
_inputfile = arg
elif opt in ("-p"):
_password = arg
if not _inputfile:
print ("Missing inputfile")
print_usage()
sys.exit(3)
if not _password:
print ("Missing password")
print_usage()
sys.exit(4)
_dirname = _extract_tar(_inputfile)
for _secure_tar in glob.glob(f'{_dirname}/*.tar.gz'):
_extract_secure_tar(_secure_tar, _password)
os.remove(_secure_tar)
print("Done")
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Then execute the following command:
python3 decrypt.py -i name-of-your-file.tar -p yourpassword
You should now have a decrypted archive that you can extract as usual.
2) Flash a fresh copy of home assistant to an SD card, or install using your preferred method
If it has been a while since you have done this the install instructions are here: Installation - Home Assistant alternative installation instructions are available in this community guide category.
3) Boot up home assistant, browse for your backup from the login page and restore
After a bit of time and a restart you should now have home assittant looking exactly like it did when the backup was taken.
Common issues:
The home assistant database or MariaDB database sometimes does not restore correctly. You can chose to repair this (search the forum for instructions) or delete it and start fresh. Home Assistant now has the ability to archive the database and create a new one on start up for the default database if corruption is detected but it does not always work as intended.
