Openwrt/ubus: Any way to not use root-password?

Configuration
1

Hi,

I am following the configuration for Openwrt (ubus) from here.

I created the user hass and changed its password using passwd hass.

I then added these lines into my configuration.yaml:

device_tracker:
  - platform: ubus
    host: 10.1.10.1
    username: hass
    password: !secret openwrt_hass_password

but I am getting these lines in the HA log when restarting:

2025-11-07 21:50:32.159 ERROR (SyncWorker_1) [openwrt.ubus.interface] api_call exception: HTTPConnectionPool(host='10.1.10.1', port=80): Max retries exceeded with url: /ubus (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.HTTPConnection object at 0x7e357a3ab8c0>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 111] Connection refused'))

Do I really need to give the integration root-access to my router? I’d rather not do that for ovious reasons, but my attempt at using the hass user has failed…

Any help is appreciated, thanks! :slight_smile:

2

OpenWrt allows rather fine-grained access to individual features via ACL definitions, it’s possible - but depending on what you want to get access to not necessarily sensible (as you’d effectively just create a root user under another name).

3

I just want to see who is connected to my network at the moment.

Why do we need to create Hass user at all if the integration needs root anyway?

4

That errors rather points to a network issue than a permission one.
Did you actually try with the roor user and that worked?

5

You are right, it was a firewall issue. Sorry and thank you!

Unfortunately it turns out I can’t use the ubus or luci integration since this is also the case for me

In my environment I don’t use the AP on the router, and so it was correctly returning no data. Armed with this information, I know that I cannot use this integration for device tracking or presence.

:confused:

6

In my environment, I don’t use the main router as access point, but it is still the DHCP provider for my whole network, so I can use luci for device tracking…

7

Hmm, that’s weird, because no devices show up in Home Assistant when I connect using luci:

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According to the doc the devices should show up there, or is that not the case anymore?