Simplifying home assistant for family and restricting access to certain views

What’s the best way to go about creating seperate dashboard that will work on the app and browser for “user” level" and restricting their access to other dashboarads?

Was reading about Dashboard mode and it doesn’t seem to be a “secure” method as certain people in my household can probably figure out how to access unwanted dashboards and views.

Unfortunately… There is no ‘secure mode’ home assisant does not currently support the Role Based Access Control (RBAC) concept.

You’re in… Or you’re not.

You can provide them with a single dashboard and try to isolate… but if they ever get out of it and are authenticated…

Yes it’s a constant discussion. Have a search. You’ll find tons of posts.

Yup did the search that’s how I learned about kiosk mode not being suitable. Was hoping that there’s been new developments. :frowning:

I’m playing with kiosk mode and trying to make the best out of it. ATM, I can lock them to the single dashboard which “good enough” for now. However, the 3 dots are available and they cans earch through entities and access them this way. If I can at least hide/disable that part, I might be able to make it work.

IE: I have helpers that allows me to toggle internet access for the kids. I don’t need my kids to be able to toggle themselves back on but still would like them to be able to trigger lights etc… in their rooms.

Only way to limit access is to have screens that are not interactive and then have users change values through limited devices, like remotes or buttons, which have a specific action per button function.

Ruler across the knuckles!!!

2 Likes

Unless I misunderstand what you’re trying to do, I accomplished this by creating different users and using Kiosk Mode.

It’s still possible. Kiosk mode only hides endpoints. What were talking about is… If one of your end users has a browser and knows the url they can jump right out of your carefully setup kiosk mode by specifying a well known url. (know the uslrl for settings… For instance?)

There’s absolutely nothing in HAOS preventing an authenticated user from doing that. It’s security by obscurity which any security pro. Will tell you is not security at all. It’s a wish and prayer.

Kiosk mode hides stuff. It’s convenient and will prevent the casual user. It’s not security. It’s not RBAC. Ruler across knuckles is more effective…

2 Likes

That’s right, I tried to clarify that in the third point in the Things that are out of the scope of Kiosk-mode section of the kiosk-mode entry. :slightly_smiling_face:

@dannieboiz, the best that you can do with Home Assistant right now is, as @NathanCu mentioned, security by obscurity. To avoid certain users visiting other dashboards that are not intended for them, you can copy this logic to a custom JavaScript module that check the user and redirect them to a specific dashboard. This is also security by obscurity but very useful for family members, kids, spouse, etc (as long as they don’t have a minimum debugging and JavaScript coding skills :slightly_smiling_face:).

1 Like

I still prefer the ruler solution.

I showed my son his web browsing logs once. Made it CRYSTAL clear I saw everything he did on his devices…

Never had an issue again… :sunglasses: :smiling_imp:

1 Like

Problem is that, like pen and paper have been replaced with computers, rulers have been replaced with laser point tools and the laser is just not powerful enough yet to have the same effect as the old ruler. :laughing:

2 Likes

Awwww okay. Understood.