2026.7.1
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Install Home Assistant Operating System

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

Download the appropriate image

After downloading the image, extract it if necessary. For example, if it comes in a ZIP file, unzip it.

Create and configure the virtual machine

When creating the virtual machine, assign memory and CPU resources based on your expected workload. You can increase these resources later if your workload grows.

Minimum resources:

  • Memory: 2 GB of RAM
  • Processors: 2 vCPUs

To create the virtual machine, follow the instructions for the hypervisor you use:

Create the virtual machine

The following steps use VirtualBox Basic Mode, which provides a simplified wizard for creating and configuring a virtual machine.

  1. Open VirtualBox, and select New on the toolbar.
  2. In the Virtual machine name and operating system step, specify the following settings:
    • Name: Enter Home Assistant.
    • VM Folder: Select a location to store the virtual machine files.
    • ISO Image: Leave blank.
    • OS: Select Linux.
    • OS Distribution: Select Oracle Linux (64-bit). If you use a Mac with Apple silicon (M1, M2, or M3), select ARM 64-bit instead.
  3. Select Next.
  4. In the Specify virtual hardware step, specify the following settings:
    • Base Memory: Set to at least 2048 MB, which is 2 GB.
    • Number of CPUs: Set to at least 2.
    • Use EFI: Select the checkbox to use UEFI instead of legacy BIOS. Home Assistant requires UEFI to boot.
  5. Select Next.
  6. In the Summary step, review the settings and select Finish.

Attach the Home Assistant disk (VDI)

Configure the virtual machine to use the Home Assistant disk (VDI) that you downloaded and extracted earlier.

  1. Select your new Home Assistant VM in the list, and then select Settings on the toolbar.
  2. Go to the Storage section.
  3. In the Storage Devices list, under Controller: SATA, right-click the empty placeholder disk and select Remove attachment.
  4. Next to Controller: SATA, select the Add hard disk icon (the blue disk with a plus sign).
  5. In the dialog that appears, select the Add button.
  6. Find and select the downloaded .vdi file.
  7. Select Choose to confirm the file.

Configure network

  1. While still in the Settings window, go to the Network section.
  2. In Attached to, change the setting to Bridged Adapter.
  3. In Name, select the network adapter you use for internet access. Home Assistant uses this adapter to communicate with other devices on your network. If your computer uses Wi-Fi, select your Wi-Fi adapter. If it uses a wired connection, select your Ethernet adapter.
  4. Select OK.

Enable automatic disk space reclamation (optional)

By default, VirtualBox does not reclaim unused disk space from virtual disks. To enable automatic disk shrinking for the Home Assistant VDI, run the following command on the host machine:

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

For more information about the command, see VBoxManage storageattach command.

  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 words such as secure or secboot), for example /usr/share/edk2/ovmf/OVMF_CODE.fd.
  7. Select 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 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).

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 type does not have access to apps. If you want to use apps, you need to use another installation type. The recommended type 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 apps. 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 type 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, you need Docker Engine 23.0.0 or later. 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 Settings > System and in the top-right corner, select the three dots menu. Then, select Restart Home Assistant.
    2. Go to Settings > 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.yaml 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
      environment:
        TZ: Europe/Amsterdam

    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 apps. 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 type 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