Linux credentials (root user)

Installation
1

Hi, I’m new to Home Assistant (I’ve just installed using the KVM/Proxmox image available here Alternative - Home Assistant) and I would like to understand a few aspects better.

As I understand it, Home Assistant is built on top of a Debian distribution; is that correct?

If so, I would like to understand where I can find the root credentials of the underlying Linux distribution. Please note that here I’m referring to the actual Linux root user of the underlying distribution and not at the Home Assistant one that you configure upon initial setup.
I haven’t been able to find this information in the documentation; does anyone know where to find it?

Thanks

2

Wrong. HA OS is built on buildroot, the HA Container is built on Alpine.

In Proxmox, if you open the HA OS console, just enter

login

and you are in the OS. (no password)

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3

Hi,

The HA container is designed as an appliance, and is deliberately locked down with prorections such as AppArmor. HAOS is built using Buildroot and Alpine not Debian, but don’t know about the containers (Docker Engine?).

The Terminal & SSH Add-On logs me in with a $ cursor, but whoami reports root - just a very limited admin within a container, on a locked-down host OS (and another layer of IPv4 / IPv6).

HAOS is deliberately locked down (unless you enable developer mode). I don’t know if container includes a similar way to gain true root - I’d hope AppArmor would prevent most sys admin tasks.

If this helps, :heart: this post!

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4

Thank you @francisp and @FloatingBoater for your quick and clear replies, and I apologise for my misunderstanding regarding Debian.

To ensure I understand correctly, does that mean a default (root?) user is created on Alpine Linux with an empty password?
That doesn’t seem a particularly good practice, even if secured using AppArmor.

If so, is there a way to safely change that password without disrupting the entire HA?

Thanks

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5

No there is not. See this topic:

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6

That is interesting, and it links to a lengthy but seemingly fascinating discussion.

Thank you for sharing it!
I will read it as soon as possible.

7

Just remember that HAOS != HA Container, and would expect that running full HAOS on ProxMox is sight overkill (but can see the advantages of getting the full supervisor if you don’t mind the extra memory):

8

@FloatingBoater thank you for your message; could you please clarify what you mean?

I followed the instruction on this page

downloading the “KVM/Proxmox (.qcow2)” image
and, as I understand it, that procedure installs the “Home Assistant Operating System”.
Is that an inappropriate method or a bad practice?

Please note that if this is too off-topic, I am happy to open a separate thread where we can discuss it.

9

I have 2 HA instances on proxmox, both HA OS. Nothing wrong with it, it is a very common installation.

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10

Nothing wrong with running HAOS + HA in a container, but it is possible to run just the HA docker container without the additional host OS (with or without the HA supervisor to manage Add-Ons which are also containers).

Running a full-stack of HAOS is probably the simplest to start with, as you get all of the HA management tools which will help you understand the multiple container layers.

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11

Thanks @francisp and @FloatingBoater for the interesting and useful clarifications