Command Line

The command_line offers functionality that issues specific commands to get data or to control a device.

Binary sensor

To use your Command binary sensor in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
binary_sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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
cover:
  - platform: command_line
    covers:
      garage_door:
        command_open: move_command up garage
        command_close: move_command down garage
        command_stop: move_command stop 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
notify:
  - name: NOTIFIER_NAME
    platform: command_line
    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
sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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
switch:
  - platform: command_line
    switches:
      kitchen_light:
        command_on: switch_command on kitchen
        command_off: switch_command off kitchen

A note on friendly_name:

When set, the friendly_name had been previously used for API calls and backend configuration instead of the object_id (“identifier”), but this behavior is changing to make the friendly_name for display purposes only. This allows users to set an identifier that emphasizes uniqueness and predictability for API and configuration purposes but have a prettier friendly_name still show up in the UI. As an additional benefit, if a user wanted to change the friendly_name / display name (e.g., from “Kitchen Lightswitch” to “Kitchen Switch” or “Living Room Light”, or remove the friendly_name altogether), they could do so without needing to change existing automations or API calls. See aREST device below for an example.

Execution

The command is executed within the configuration directory.

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
binary_sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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.

binary_sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    command: '/bin/systemctl is-active [email protected]'
    payload_on: "active"
    payload_off: "inactive"

Example cover platform

# Example configuration.yaml entry
cover:
  - platform: command_line
    covers:
      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:

{% raw %}

# Example configuration.yaml entry
sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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
sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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.

sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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.

sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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
sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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
sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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
sensor:
  - platform: command_line
    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.

switch:
  - platform: command_line
    switches:

      driveway_sensor_motion:
        friendly_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
switch:
  - platform: command_line
    switches:
      arest_pin_four:
        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" }}'
        friendly_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
switch:
  - platform: command_line
    switches:
      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
switch:
  - platform: command_line
    switches:
      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
switch:
  - platform: command_line
    switches:
      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.