Newbie - View logs/SSH etc

Configuration
1

Hi all,

I’ve been searching and reading but I have not found the answers to a couple basic questions:

  1. I see mentions of “errors in the log” in various posts. When I screw something up in my configuration I’d like to be able to see the log. But I’ve yet to figure out how to view the log. How does one look at the lower level log that would show YAML configuration issues?

  2. SSH. I’m a developer by trade and quite comfortable with Linux. I’d like to SSH to my RPi running hass.io and I see there is an addon to add SSH but I’ve not installed or got that working yet. Is that the easiest way to get to the Pi? I’m interested in looking at logs, checking the load state etc.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi,

I don’t run Hass.io but do have SSH set up on my Ubuntu NUC. Then I use WinSCP on my PC to view the logs. So definitely setup SSH.

Sometimes you’ll make a change and HA won’t start, without SSHing to the logs it becomes a nightmare to figure out what is wrong.

The log is by default not set to debug but usually will have the main error reasons.

Good Luck.

Simon

3

Hi Simon,

That is my goal. It seems a chicken/egg thing unless I’m missing something…

Currently, with the default hass.io install on RPi I cannot SSH in using Putty. It seems that installing the SSH component, (which I want to do), requires keys and one needs to go on the server. Not exactly sure how to get that key over to the server if I cannot get an initial terminal going.

Have yet to find any good info on how to get this stuff started. I did find the system log on the GUI finally.

4

Install the add-on. You can either use shared ssh keys or a password. The user is root. This gives you access to a limited shell and the persistent file systems /config, /backup, etc. All of your config files, logs, DB, etc are in /config.

Also, I’ve found it best to run the “check config” task under Configuration > Server Controls prior to restarting HA if you have made changes.

5

Thanks Dap…

I got SSH working after a few failures.

Under configuration -> Server Controls the ONLY THING I HAVE is restart. How do I add the check config task?

I’ve added one from add-ons and I’ll see how it works but I’m wondering if I’m missing something.

6

go to your user icon in the bottom left hand corner of the side panel.

in there will be a switch called “advanced mode”. turn it on. the other stuff should be in the server control window after that.