Overwhelimingly

Installation
1

To anyone who reads this, I’m from the Netherlands and new to Home Assistant.
After, like more then 5 tries, i finally have Home Assistant running, in a docker container on Ubuntu. I played around with it, put up the Afvalinfo with notification to my google mini speaker. Takes some time to figure out but when it is finally up and running it is very nice and smooth. So I got some Yeelights, I playe around with a weather card and it is enjoying me, when all goes according to plan.

The thing i stumble on is that i search the internet a lot for how-to’s and step by steps. But here it is that mostly they are, like, old.

I now try to setup mqtt - nodered. So i search and after some time i find a tutorial but then they speak of add-ons. So i go search this, why i have no add-ons, turns out HomeAssistant in docker container has no add-ons. Ok so i have to take another route. Reading and searching, come to HACS. So i install node red companion. Then i find another tutorial, i need to put some code in the configuration.yaml file, doing this, gives errors, i keep checking the lines in yaml checker to be sure all is in the right order and place.

Luckily every time before i go change something i make a backup of the config folder, so when i f*ck everything up, i can go back. I have now back-upped 9 times trying to install node red mqtt but i have no clue anymore. Nothing seems to work and i feel really small.

So here is my first question, which probably is asked before, but I’m unable to find it, or it was so long ago, the steps are not relevant anymore because of the rapid changes of time and things. Is there somewhere a step-by-step how to tutorial to install node-red and mosquitto for HomeAssistant running in a docker container on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS?

And also, most tutorials tell you to do this, or that, but when it does not work, it does not tell you what to do then, and here i go search the internet again.

Thank you in advance for reading my question, your answer is much appreciated.

2

Hi, Home Assistant can be a handful indeed, but well worth the effort once you get the hang of it. And don’t hesitate to ask here…

I am not in a position to answer the direct question, but I do have a different one for you. It seems docker was not a conscious choice. Is the machine you are running on going to do other, not Home Assistant related things, or not? If not, I would suggest switching to HAOS (Home Assistant OS). It is quite effortless to make a backup and restore it in HAOS, so you won’t need to lose anything.

And if you do, the path forward will be way easier. Addons will be there, guides will more often work as expected. Life will be easier. You should only use Docker if you are confident using it and configuring software components that would otherwise be installed as addons, and actually want to use Docker for other things, not related to Home Assistant at all. (Things cou could not run as an addon).

1 Like
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Thank you for your answer. I was the only choice and last choice. I tried all other choices, but with every other choice i had problems. Login screen not showing up, so it was just waiting and saying the HomeAssistant CLI was not running. I did search the internet again and the solution was to wait awhile, but after a day of waiting, i tried again, from ubuntu live usb, then restoring the image on the harddrive, this also resulted in As you can guess, problems. So then i installed latest ubuntu, and followed the docker install. From the first start all went well. So this is why i am using it like this. Experience. :slight_smile:

Oh and also it would be nice to use ubuntu for other things also.

4

The first reason would be a shame (the experience was seamless for me both on a RPI and a NUC), but the second one is valid enough. Though I’m running HAOS with 20 addons (did that on both platforms) so I would not be able to say mine isn’t doing anything else :slight_smile:

Hope someone can help you along with Node Red and Mosquitto on Docker.

5

I have mosquitto and nodered on the host, and they work.

Well, I could understand the benefits using a pc dedicated for HomeAssistant. I’ll be thinking now, what the heck, lets just format and try haos again. Do you think i can use the backup of my config folder in the new install?

6

Home Assistant Docker should have the backup function, you can use that. It creates a zip file with all the relevant files. Make sure you put it somewhere safe. Copying the entire config folder while HA is running should also work, but I would go for the backup function, it is good practice to run that daily anyway.

If you go the config folder way, installing the Samba addon, stopping HA and copying the config folder through Samba is also possible.

7

OK, so you have already installed NR & MQTT?

You now just need to access them from HA itself?

8

Yes, i have already installed node red, and also mqtt integration. Node red is on the host, mosquitto too. The mqtt integration has no errors.

I’m just to stupid to understand all this yaml stuff. I now have all the topics for sensors and climate inside the configuration.yaml without errors. But still the whole logical setup in different yaml and then the mqtt: sensor or mqtt: - sensor, oh well, when you do not understand is looks all jibberish, i have watched several videos today and still have no idea how it works. template: mqtt: climate and you have a sensor.yaml and a climate.yaml. But ok so, the configurtion.yaml seems to be working. I now get all the sensors in developer/status and can see then, they are all unknown. So no my guess is, is have to connect them in nodered. So this is my journey of the day. I open a node, and i need to fill in things, but what things.

There are for instance 2 nodes, both called sensor node. One is with mqtt broker device name entity name unit and then configuration. Other is entity config and attributes.

Normally i would do some toipic like: homeassistant/out/# and then a debug node to see what is the data. But well, i just need some sleep and maybe tomorrow i will try, search, read and watch videos again to understand my stupidity. :slight_smile:

9

So, okay, i have got a step further, i can now get a temperature from one device connected to node red to homeassistant. And i see now there is 2 different ways, what i now see is that i use the homeassistant server with port 8123 im used to use port 1883. So my guess is that it is different then mqtt server. So the msg.payload from temperature device, becomes a string in the function, then it goes into entity_update node. But now i get really confused. I made sensors inside yaml. sensor.livingroom.temp but these do not show up in node red. No i have to make the sensor in node red and then it show up in homeassistant in docker ubuntu. The sensor is now called sensor.nodered.someRendomNumber. Luckily i can give it a friendly name though. And this sensor.nodered i can see in homeassistant entities. But now im searching where is it put, what yaml it goes to. Then the next thing to find out is, how to send from homeassistant docker ubuntu to a node red device. But that will be a journey for tomorrow. Step by step. So there is mqtt and there is homeassistant server. hmm

10

Ok, it is working now. Thanks for the very good help :expressionless: