Command Line
The command_line offers functionality that issues specific commands to get data or to control a device.
It’s highly recommended to enclose the command in single quotes ' as it ensures all characters can be used in the command and reduces the risk of unintentional escaping. To include a single quote in a command enclosed in single quotes, double it: ''.
Configuration Variables
The platforms to use for you command_line integration.
Binary sensor platform.
Sets the class of the device, changing the device state and icon that is displayed on the frontend.
An ID that uniquely identifies this binary sensor. Set this to a unique value to allow customization through the UI.
Defines a template to extract a value from the payload.
Cover platform.
If given, this will act as a sensor that runs in the background and updates the state of the cover. If the command returns a 0 the indicates the cover is fully closed, whereas a 100 indicates the cover is fully open.
An ID that uniquely identifies this cover. Set this to a unique value to allow customization through the UI.
if specified, command_state will ignore the result code of the command but the template evaluating will indicate the position of the cover. For example, if your command_state returns a string “open”, using value_template as in the example configuration above will allow you to translate that into the valid state 100.
Notify platform.
Setting the optional parameter name allows multiple notifiers to be created. The notifier will bind to the service notify.NOTIFIER_NAME.
Sensor platform.
Defines a list of keys to extract values from a JSON dictionary result and then set as sensor attributes.
An ID that uniquely identifies this sensor. Set this to a unique value to allow customization through the UI.
Defines a template to extract a value from the payload.
Switch platform.
If given, this command will be run. Returning a result code 0 will indicate that the switch is on.
Defines a template for the icon of the entity.
An ID that uniquely identifies this switch. Set this to a unique value to allow customization through the UI.
If specified, command_state will ignore the result code of the command but the template evaluating to true will indicate the switch is on.
Binary sensor
To use your Command binary sensor in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- binary_sensor:
command: "cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward"
Cover
A command_linecover platform that issues specific commands when it is moved up, down and stopped. It allows anyone to integrate any type of cover into Home Assistant that can be controlled from the command line.
To enable a command line cover in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- cover:
command_open: move_command up garage
command_close: move_command down garage
command_stop: move_command stop garage
name: Garage
Notify
The command_line platform allows you to use external tools for notifications from Home Assistant. The message will be passed in as STDIN.
To enable those notifications in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- notify:
command: "espeak -vmb/mb-us1"
To use notifications, please see the getting started with automation page.
Sensor
To enable it, add the following lines to your configuration.yaml:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- sensor:
command: SENSOR_COMMAND
Switch
The command_line switch platform issues specific commands when it is turned on
and off. This might very well become our most powerful platform as it allows
anyone to integrate any type of switch into Home Assistant that can be
controlled from the command line, including calling other scripts!
To enable it, add the following lines to your configuration.yaml:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- switch:
name: Kitchen Light
command_on: switch_command on kitchen
command_off: switch_command off kitchen
A note on name for cover and switch:
The use of friendly_name and object_id has been deprecated and the slugified name will also be used as identifier.
Use unique_id to enable changing the name from the UI if required to use name as identifier object as required.
Execution
The command is executed within the configuration directory.
If you are using Home Assistant Operating System, the commands are executed in the homeassistant container context. So if you test or debug your script, it might make sense to do this in the context of this container to get the same runtime environment.
With a 0 exit code, the output (stdout) of the command is used as value. In case a command results in a non 0 exit code or is terminated by the command_timeout, the result is only logged to Home Assistant log and the sensors value is not updated.
Examples binary sensor platform
In this section you find some real-life examples of how to use the command_line sensor.
SickRage
Check the state of an SickRage instance.
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- binary_sensor:
command: 'netstat -na | find "33322" | find /c "LISTENING" > nul && (echo "Running") || (echo "Not running")'
name: "sickragerunning"
device_class: moving
payload_on: "Running"
payload_off: "Not running"
Check RasPlex
Check if RasPlex is online.
command_line:
- binary_sensor:
command: 'ping -c 1 rasplex.local | grep "1 received" | wc -l'
name: "is_rasplex_online"
device_class: connectivity
payload_on: 1
payload_off: 0
An alternative solution could look like this:
command_line:
- binary_sensor:
name: Printer
command: 'ping -W 1 -c 1 192.168.1.10 > /dev/null 2>&1 && echo success || echo fail'
device_class: connectivity
payload_on: "success"
payload_off: "fail"
Consider to use the ping sensor as an alternative to the samples above.
Check if a system service is running
The services running is listed in /etc/systemd/system and can be checked with the systemctl command:
$ systemctl is-active [email protected]
active
$ sudo service [email protected] stop
$ systemctl is-active [email protected]
inactive
A binary command line sensor can check this:
command_line:
- binary_sensor:
command: '/bin/systemctl is-active [email protected]'
payload_on: "active"
payload_off: "inactive"
Example cover platform
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- cover:
name: Garage door
command_open: move_command up garage
command_close: move_command down garage
command_stop: move_command stop garage
command_state: state_command garage
value_template: >
{% if value == 'open' %}
100
{% elif value == 'closed' %}
0
{% endif %}
Examples sensor platform
In this section you find some real-life examples of how to use this sensor.
CPU temperature
Thanks to the proc file system, various details about a system can be retrieved. Here the CPU temperature is of interest. Add something similar to your configuration.yaml file:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- sensor:
name: CPU Temperature
command: "cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp"
# If errors occur, make sure configuration file is encoded as UTF-8
unit_of_measurement: "°C"
value_template: "{{ value | multiply(0.001) | round(1) }}"
Monitoring failed login attempts on Home Assistant
If you’d like to know how many failed login attempts are made to Home Assistant, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- sensor:
name: Badlogin
command: "grep -c 'Login attempt' /home/hass/.homeassistant/home-assistant.log"
Make sure to configure the Logger integration to monitor the HTTP integration at least the warning level.
# Example working logger settings that works
logger:
default: critical
logs:
homeassistant.components.http: warning
Details about the upstream Home Assistant release
You can see directly in the frontend (Developer tools -> About) what release of Home Assistant you are running. The Home Assistant releases are available on the Python Package Index. This makes it possible to get the current release.
command_line:
- sensor:
command: python3 -c "import requests; print(requests.get('https://pypi.python.org/pypi/homeassistant/json').json()['info']['version'])"
name: HA release
Read value out of a remote text file
If you own devices which are storing values in text files which are accessible over HTTP then you can use the same approach as shown in the previous section. Instead of looking at the JSON response we directly grab the sensor’s value.
command_line:
- sensor:
command: python3 -c "import requests; print(requests.get('http://remote-host/sensor_data.txt').text)"
name: File value
Use an external script
The example is doing the same as the aREST sensor but with an external Python script. It should give you an idea about interfacing with devices which are exposing a RESTful API.
The one-line script to retrieve a value is shown below. Of course it would be possible to use this directly in the configuration.yaml file but need extra care about the quotation marks.
python3 -c "import requests; print(requests.get('http://10.0.0.48/analog/2').json()['return_value'])"
The script (saved as arest-value.py) that is used looks like the example below.
#!/usr/bin/python3
from requests import get
response = get("http://10.0.0.48/analog/2")
print(response.json()["return_value"])
To use the script you need to add something like the following to your configuration.yaml file.
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- sensor:
name: Brightness
command: "python3 /path/to/script/arest-value.py"
Usage of templating in command:
Templates are supported in the command configuration variable. This could be used if you want to include the state of a specific sensor as an argument to your external script.
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- sensor:
name: Wind direction
command: "sh /home/pi/.homeassistant/scripts/wind_direction.sh {{ states('sensor.wind_direction') }}"
unit_of_measurement: "Direction"
Usage of JSON attributes in command output
The example shows how you can retrieve multiple values with one sensor (where the additional values are attributes) by using value_json and json_attributes.
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- sensor:
name: JSON time
json_attributes:
- date
- milliseconds_since_epoch
command: "python3 /home/pi/.homeassistant/scripts/datetime.py"
value_template: "{{ value_json.time }}"
Example switch platform
Change the icon when a state changes
This example demonstrates how to use template to change the icon as its state changes. This icon is referencing its own state.
command_line:
- switch:
name: Driveway outside sensor
command_on: >
curl -X PUT -d '{"on":true}' "http://ip_address/api/sensors/27/config/"
command_off: >
curl -X PUT -d '{"on":false}' "http://ip_address/api/sensors/27/config/"
command_state: curl http://ip_address/api/sensors/27/
value_template: >
{{value_json.config.on}}
icon_template: >
{% if value_json.config.on == true %} mdi:toggle-switch
{% else %} mdi:toggle-switch-off
{% endif %}
aREST device
The example below is doing the same as the
aREST switch.
The command line tool curl is used to toggle a pin
which is controllable through REST.
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- switch:
command_on: "/usr/bin/curl -X GET http://192.168.1.10/digital/4/1"
command_off: "/usr/bin/curl -X GET http://192.168.1.10/digital/4/0"
command_state: "/usr/bin/curl -X GET http://192.168.1.10/digital/4"
value_template: '{{ value == "1" }}'
name: Kitchen Lightswitch
Given this example, in the UI one would see the friendly_name of
“Kitchen Light”. However, the identifier is arest_pin_four, making the
entity_id switch.arest_pin_four, which is what one would use in
automation or in API calls.
Shutdown your local host
This switch will shutdown your system that is hosting Home Assistant.
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- switch:
name: Home Assistant System Shutdown
command_off: "/usr/sbin/poweroff"
Control your VLC player
This switch will control a local VLC media player (Source).
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- switch:
name: VLC
command_on: "cvlc 1.mp3 vlc://quit &"
command_off: "pkill vlc"
Control Foscam Motion Sensor
This switch will control the motion sensor of Foscam Webcams which Support CGI Commands (Source). This switch supports statecmd, which checks the current state of motion detection.
# Example configuration.yaml entry
command_line:
- switch:
name: Foscam Motion
command_on: 'curl -k "https://ipaddress:443/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=setMotionDetectConfig&isEnable=1&usr=admin&pwd=password"'
command_off: 'curl -k "https://ipaddress:443/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=setMotionDetectConfig&isEnable=0&usr=admin&pwd=password"'
command_state: 'curl -k --silent "https://ipaddress:443/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=getMotionDetectConfig&usr=admin&pwd=password" | grep -oP "(?<=isEnable>).*?(?=</isEnable>)"'
value_template: '{{ value == "1" }}'
- Replace admin and password with an “Admin” privileged Foscam user
- Replace ipaddress with the local IP address of your Foscam
Services
Available services: reload.
Service command_line.reload
Reload all command_line entities.
This service takes no service data attributes.