hass-systemd v0.1.2

Allows Home Assistant to run as a systemd notify daemon, with watchdog support.

(C) Timothy Brown 2018.11.18

Instructions

These instructions assume you're running under Raspbian/Hasbian (or similar), have HA installed into /srv/hass, are running as system user named hass and using a configuration directory of /srv/hass/config. Please change any paths as needed for your particular setup.

• Make sure we're in our login user's home directory:
  • cd ~
• Create the custom components directory, if needed:
  • sudo -u hass mkdir -p /srv/hass/config/custom_components
• Download the plugin files:
  • git clone https://github.com/timothybrown/hass-systemd.git /srv/hass/config/custom_components/systemd
• Set file permissions:
  • sudo chown -R hass:hass /srv/hass/config/custom_components/systemd
• Edit your HA configuration to enable our new component:
  • sudo -u hass nano /srv/hass/config/configuration.yaml
  • Add the following line somewhere in the file:
    • systemd:
• Edit the systemd service file to reflect your configuration:
  • nano /srv/hass/config/custom_components/systemd/hass.service
  • (The ExecStart= and User= line is the only thing that really needs to be changed.)
• Setup the systemd service:
  • sudo chown root:root /srv/hass/config/custom_components/hass.service
  • If you're already using systemd to launch HA, you'll need to stop the existing service first and replace it with the included file. This can be done as follows:
    • sudo systemctl disable --now my-ha.service
  • Now we'll copy and enable the new service:
    • sudo cp /srv/hass/config/custom_components/systemd/hass.service /etc/systemd/system/
    • sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    • sudo systemctl enable hass.service
• Start the new service and monitor the journal and make sure no errors appear:
  • sudo systemctl start hass.service; journalctl -f -u hass.service
  • Wait for at least 5 minutes to make sure the watchdog is functioning.
• Verify the component is reporting status to systemd:
  • sudo systemctl status hass.service
  • Look for the 'Status:' line near the top, it should read "Home Assistant is running."

Service File Options

Required Options

The only options that must be set before using the service file are in the [Service] section:

• Type This option must be set to notify.
• ExecStart Command used to start HA.
• User Username to run HA under.

After, Wants, Before

If you want to order other services to start before or after HA, you'll need to add their units to the Before= or After= directives in the [Unit] section. Required dependencies should be added to the After= and Wants= directives. Here are some tips:

• Network To delay HA until the network is up, add network-online.target to the After= and Wants= directives.
• Time Sync To make sure your system clock is set before HA starts, add time-sync.target to the After= and Wants= directives, then run systemctl enable systemd-time-wait-sync.service to enable the target.
• Bluetooth If you use BTLE for device tracking, add bluetooth.target to the After= and Wants= directives.
• Databases If you use an external database (Postgres, MySQL, etc.), make sure it starts first by adding the unit name to the After= and Wants= directives.
• MQTT If you run a local instance of Mosquitto, add mosquitto.service to the After= and Wants= directives.

Timeouts

The various timeout directives in the [Service] section control how and when systemd restarts HA on failures and errors.

• TimeoutStartSec & TimeoutStopSec Controls how long systemd waits for HA to complete startup and shutdown operations, respectivly.
• WatchdogSec The hass-systemd component must 'pet the dog' within this interval or systemd will kill HA. Comment this out to disable watchdog functionality.
• Restart Action to take when one of the above timeouts is reached. Default is to restart the service.
• RestartSec Delay between a timeout and performing the above action.

Known Issues

Please report any issues here on GitHub. Enjoy!

Version History

• 0.1.0 (2018.11.16)
  • Test release to verify concept.
• 0.1.1 (2018.11.17)
  • Switched to asyncio functions.
• 0.1.2 (2018.11.18)
  • Now reports the main PID to systemd.
  • Added comments and cleaned up the code.
• 0.2.0 (2019.04.26)
  • Converted to a HA integration.
  • Added manifest file.
  • Moved Function 'notify_status' inside 'async_setup'.