2025.5.3
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Install Home Assistant Operating System

Download the appropriate image

After downloading, decompress the image. If the image comes in a ZIP file, for example, unzip it.

Follow this guide if you already are running a supported virtual machine hypervisor. If you are not familiar with virtual machines, install Home Assistant OS directly on a Home Assistant Yellow, a Raspberry Pi, or an ODROID.

Create the virtual machine

Load the appliance image into your virtual machine hypervisor. (Note: You are free to assign as much resources as you wish to the VM, please assign enough based on your add-on needs).

Minimum recommended assignments:

  • 2 GB RAM
  • 32 GB Storage
  • 2vCPU

All these can be extended if your usage calls for more resources.

Hypervisor specific configuration

  1. Create a new virtual machine.
  2. Select type Linux, subtype Oracle Linux and version Oracle Linux (ARM 64-bit).
  3. Under Hardware, select the amount of memory and number of CPUs. Then, select Enable EFI.
    • Make sure EFI is enabled. If EFI is not enabled, HAOS won’t boot.
  4. Under Hard Disk, select Use an existing virtual hard disk file, select the unzipped VDI file from above.
  5. Then go to Network > Adapter 1. Choose Bridged Adapter and choose your network adapter (i.e. en0:Wi-Fi).
  6. Then go to Audio and choose Intel HD Audio as audio controller.

By default, VirtualBox does not free up unused disk space. To automatically shrink the vdi disk image the discard option must be enabled using your host machine’s terminal:

VBoxManage storageattach <VM name> --storagectl "SATA" --port 0 --device 0 --nonrotational on --discard on

More details can be found about the command can be found here.

  1. Download the .qcow2 image above and decompress it. (Extract all in Windows)
  2. Store the image in the isos share on your server.
  3. Make sure under Settings > VM manager, Enable VMs is enabled.
  4. Create a new virtual machine: VMS > Add VM.
  5. Select type Linux and give the VM a name and a description.
  6. Select the CPU cores you want to let the VM use and give it some memory.
  7. Under Primary vDisk Location, select Manual and then select the qcow2 image.
  8. Select your keyboard language under VM Console Keyboard.
  9. Select br0 under Network Source.
  10. Select virtio under Network model.
  11. Select any USB-devices that you want to pass through to Home Assistant, such as Zigbee- or Z-Wave controllers.
  12. Deselect Start VM after creation.
  13. Select Create.
  14. Select the name of your new VM and select the capacity number for your disk. Here, you can expand the disk to whatever your needs are. The default is 32 GB.
  15. Select the icon of your new VM and select start with console (VNC).
  1. Create a new virtual machine in virt-manager.
  2. Select Import existing disk image, provide the path to the QCOW2 image above.
  3. Choose Generic Default for the operating system.
  4. Check the box for Customize configuration before install.
  5. Under Network Selection, select your bridge.
  6. Under customization select Overview > Firmware > UEFI x86_64: …. Make sure to select a non-secureboot version of OVMF (does not contain the word secure, secboot, etc.), e.g., /usr/share/edk2/ovmf/OVMF_CODE.fd.
  7. Click Add Hardware (bottom left), and select Channel.
  8. Select device type: unix.
  9. Select name: org.qemu.guest_agent.0.
  10. Finally, select Begin Installation (upper left corner).
virt-install --name haos --description "Home Assistant OS" --os-variant=generic --ram=4096 --vcpus=2 --disk <PATH TO QCOW2 FILE>,bus=scsi --controller type=scsi,model=virtio-scsi --import --graphics none --boot uefi

If you have a USB dongle to attach, you need to add the option --hostdev busID.deviceId. You can discover these IDs via the lsusb command. As example, if lsusb output is:

   Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
   Bus 003 Device 004: ID 30c9:0052 Luxvisions Innotech Limited Integrated RGB Camera
   Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1a86:55d4 QinHeng Electronics SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus V2
   Bus 003 Device 002: ID 06cb:00fc Synaptics, Inc. 
   Bus 003 Device 005: ID 8087:0033 Intel Corp. 
   Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
   Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
   Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

You can recognize the Sonoff dongle at Bus 003 Device 003. So the command to install the VM will become:

virt-install --name haos --description "Home Assistant OS" --os-variant=generic --ram=4096 --vcpus=2 --disk <PATH TO QCOW2 FILE>,bus=scsi --controller type=scsi,model=virtio-scsi --import --graphics none --boot uefi --hostdev 003.003

Note that this configuration (bus 003, device 003) is just an example, your dongle could be on another bus and/or with another device ID. Please check the correct IDs of your USB dongle with lsusb.

Start up your virtual machine

  1. Start the virtual machine.
  2. Observe the boot process of the Home Assistant Operating System.
  3. Once completed, you will be able to reach Home Assistant on homeassistant.local:8123. If you are running an older Windows version or have a stricter network configuration, you might need to access Home Assistant at homeassistant:8123 or http://X.X.X.X:8123 (replace X.X.X.X with your virtual machine’s IP address).

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With the Home Assistant Operating System installed and accessible, you can continue with onboarding.

  Onboarding

Install Home Assistant Container

These below instructions are for an installation of Home Assistant ContainerHome Assistant Container is a standalone container-based installation of Home Assistant Core. Any OCI compatible runtime can be used, but the documentation focus is on Docker. [Learn more] running in your own container environment, which you manage yourself. Any OCI compatible runtime can be used, however this guide will focus on installing it with Docker.

Note

This installation method does not have access to add-ons. If you want to use add-ons, you need to use another installation method. The recommended method is Home Assistant Operating SystemHome Assistant OS, the Home Assistant Operating System, is an embedded, minimalistic, operating system designed to run the Home Assistant ecosystem on single board computers (like the Raspberry Pi) or Virtual Machines. It includes Home Assistant Core, the Home Assistant Supervisor, and supports add-ons. Home Assistant Supervisor keeps it up to date, removing the need for you to manage an operating system. Home Assistant Operating System is the recommended installation method for most users.. Checkout the overview table of installation types to see the differences.

Important

Prerequisites This guide assumes that you already have an operating system setup and a container runtime installed (like Docker).

If you are using Docker then you need to be on at least version 19.03.9, ideally an even higher version, and libseccomp 2.4.2 or newer. Docker Desktop will not work, you must use Docker Engine.

Platform installation

Installation with Docker is straightforward. Adjust the following command so that:

  • /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG points at the folder where you want to store your configuration and run it. Make sure that you keep the :/config part.

  • MY_TIME_ZONE is a tz database name, like TZ=America/Los_Angeles.

  • D-Bus is optional but required if you plan to use the Bluetooth integration.

    docker run -d \
  --name homeassistant \
  --privileged \
  --restart=unless-stopped \
  -e TZ=MY_TIME_ZONE \
  -v /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG:/config \
  -v /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro \
  --network=host \
  ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable

    # if this returns "Image is up to date" then you can stop here
docker pull ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable

    # stop the running container
docker stop homeassistant

    # remove it from Docker's list of containers
docker rm homeassistant

    # finally, start a new one
docker run -d \
  --name homeassistant \
  --restart=unless-stopped \
  --privileged \
  -e TZ=MY_TIME_ZONE \
  -v /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG:/config \
  -v /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro \
  --network=host \
  ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable

    Once the Home Assistant Container is running Home Assistant should be accessible using http://<host>:8123 (replace with the hostname or IP of the system). You can continue with onboarding.

      Onboarding

    Restart Home Assistant

    If you change the configuration, you have to restart the server. To do that you have 3 options.

    1. In your Home Assistant UI, go to the Settings > System and click the Restart button.
    2. You can go to the Developer Tools > Actions, select homeassistant.restart and select Perform action.
    3. Restart it from a terminal.
    docker restart homeassistant

    docker compose restart

    Docker compose

    Tip

    docker compose should already be installed on your system. If not, you can manually install it.

    As the Docker command becomes more complex, switching to docker compose can be preferable and support automatically restarting on failure or system restart. Create a compose.yml file:

      services:
    homeassistant:
      container_name: homeassistant
      image: "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable"
      volumes:
        - /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG:/config
        - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
        - /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro
      restart: unless-stopped
      privileged: true
      network_mode: host

    Start it by running:

    docker compose up -d

    Once the Home Assistant Container is running, Home Assistant should be accessible using http://<host>:8123 (replace with the hostname or IP of the system). You can continue with onboarding.

      Onboarding

    Exposing devices

    In order to use Zigbee or other integrations that require access to devices, you need to map the appropriate device into the container. Ensure the user that is running the container has the correct privileges to access the /dev/tty* file, then add the device mapping to your container instructions:

    docker run ... --device /dev/ttyUSB0:/dev/ttyUSB0 ...

    services:
  homeassistant:
    ...
    devices:
      - /dev/ttyUSB0:/dev/ttyUSB0

    Optimizations

    The Home Assistant Container is using an alternative memory allocation library jemalloc for better memory management and Python runtime speedup.

    As the jemalloc configuration used can cause issues on certain hardware featuring a page size larger than 4K (like some specific ARM64-based SoCs), it can be disabled by passing the environment variable DISABLE_JEMALLOC with any value, for example:

    docker run ... -e "DISABLE_JEMALLOC=true" ...

    services:
  homeassistant:
  ...
    environment:
      DISABLE_JEMALLOC: true

    The error message <jemalloc>: Unsupported system page size is one known indicator.

    Troubleshooting

    No access to the frontend

    Symptom: You cannot open the Home Assistant page in your browser. If you are not using Home Assistant Operating SystemHome Assistant OS, the Home Assistant Operating System, is an embedded, minimalistic, operating system designed to run the Home Assistant ecosystem on single board computers (like the Raspberry Pi) or Virtual Machines. It includes Home Assistant Core, the Home Assistant Supervisor, and supports add-ons. Home Assistant Supervisor keeps it up to date, removing the need for you to manage an operating system. Home Assistant Operating System is the recommended installation method for most users., the cause may be an access restriction.

    In newer Linux distributions, the access to a host is very limited. This means that you can’t access the Home Assistant frontend that is running on a host outside of the host machine.

    To fix this, you will need to open your machine’s firewall for TCP traffic to port 8123. The method for doing this will vary depending on your operating system and the firewall you have installed. Below are some suggestions to try. Google is your friend here.

    For UFW systems (for example, Debian):

    sudo ufw allow 8123/tcp