Home Assistant

HTTP

The http component serves all files and data required for the Home Assistant frontend. You only need to add this to your configuration file if you want to change any of the default settings.

It is HIGHLY recommended that you set the api_password, especially if you are planning to expose your installation to the internet.

Don’t use option server_host on a hass.io installation! 

# Example configuration.yaml entry
http:
  api_password: YOUR_PASSWORD

Configuration variables:

  • api_password (Optional): Protect Home Assistant with a password.
  • server_host (Optional): Only listen to incoming requests on specific IP/host (default: bind to 0.0.0.0 which means accept all IPv4 connections). Use server_host: "::0" if you want to listen to (and only) IPv6.
  • server_port (Optional): Let you set a port to use. Defaults to 8123.
  • base_url (Optional): The URL that Home Assistant is available on the internet. For example: hass-example.duckdns.org:8123. Defaults to the local IP address. The iOS app finds local installations, if you have an outside URL use this so that you can auto-fill when discovered in the app.
  • ssl_certificate (Optional): Path to your TLS/SSL certificate to serve Home Assistant over a secure connection.
  • ssl_key (Optional): Path to your TLS/SSL key to serve Home Assistant over a secure connection.
  • cors_allowed_origins (Optional): A list of origin domain names to allow CORS requests from. Enabling this will set the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header to the Origin header if it is found in the list, and the Access-Control-Allow-Headers header to Origin, Accept, X-Requested-With, Content-type, X-HA-access. You must provide the exact Origin, i.e. https://home-assistant.io will allow requests from https://home-assistant.io but not http://home-assistant.io.
  • use_x_forwarded_for (Optional): Enable parsing of the X-Forwarded-For header, passing on the client’s correct IP address in proxied setups. You should only enable this in a trustworthy network environment, as clients passing that header could easily spoof their source IP address. Defaults to False.
  • trusted_networks (Optional): List of trusted networks, consisting of IP addresses or networks, that are allowed to bypass password protection when accessing Home Assistant. It should be noted that if you use a reverse proxy, all requests to Home Assistant, regardless of source, will arrive from the reverse proxy IP address. Therefore in a reverse proxy scenario, this option should be used with extreme care.
  • ip_ban_enabled (Optional): Flag indicating whether additional IP filtering is enabled. Defaults to False.
  • login_attempts_threshold (Optional): Number of failed login attempt from single IP after which it will be automatically banned if ip_ban_enabled is True. Defaults to -1, meaning that no new automatic bans will be added.

The sample below shows a configuration entry with possible values:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
http:
  api_password: YOUR_PASSWORD
  server_port: 12345
  ssl_certificate: /etc/letsencrypt/live/hass.example.com/fullchain.pem
  ssl_key: /etc/letsencrypt/live/hass.example.com/privkey.pem
  cors_allowed_origins:
    - https://google.com
    - https://home-assistant.io
  use_x_forwarded_for: True
  trusted_networks:
    - 127.0.0.1
    - ::1
    - 192.168.0.0/24
    - 2001:DB8:ABCD::/48
  ip_ban_enabled: True
  login_attempts_threshold: 5

The Set up encryption using Let’s Encrypt blog post gives you details about the encryption of your traffic using free certificates from Let’s Encrypt.

Or use a self signed certificate following the instructions here Self-signed certificate for SSL/TLS.

On top of the http component is a REST API, Python API and WebSocket API available. There is also support for Server-sent events.

The http platforms are not real platforms within the meaning of the terminology used around Home Assistant. Home Assistant’s REST API sends and receives messages over HTTP.

To use those kind of sensors or binary sensors in your installation no configuration in Home Assistant is needed. All configuration is done on the devices themselves. This means that you must be able to edit the target URL or endpoint and the payload. The entity will be created after the first message has arrived.

All requests need to be sent to the endpoint of the device and must be POST.

If you want to use Home Assistant to host or serve static files then create a directory called www under the .homeassistant configuration path. The static files in .homeassistant/www/ can be accessed by the following URL http://your.domain:8123/local/.

If you want to apply additional IP filtering, and automatically ban brute force attempts, set ip_ban_enabled to True and the maximum number of attempts. After the first ban, an ip_bans.yaml file will be created in the root configuration folder. It will have the banned IP address and time in UTC when it was added:

127.0.0.1:
  banned_at: '2016-11-16T19:20:03'

After a ban is added a Persistent Notification is populated to the Home Assistant frontend.

Please note, that sources from trusted_networks won’t be banned automatically.