home-assistant.io/source/_components/recorder.markdown

layout	title	description	date	sidebar	comments	sharing	footer	logo	ha_category	ha_release	ha_qa_scale
page	Recorder	Instructions on how to configure the data recorder for Home Assistant.	2018-06-03 11:30	true	false	true	true	home-assistant.png	History	pre 0.7	internal

The recorder component is responsible for storing details in a database, which then are handled by the history component.

Home Assistant uses SQLAlchemy, which is an Object Relational Mapper (ORM). This means that you can use any SQL backend for the recorder that is supported by SQLAlchemy, like MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or MS SQL Server.

The default database engine is SQLite which doesn't require any configuration. The database is stored in your Home Assistant configuration directory (.homeassistant) and called home-assistant_v2.db.

To change the defaults for the recorder component in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
recorder:

{% configuration %} recorder: description: Enables the recorder component. Only allowed once. required: true type: map keys: db_url: description: The URL that points to your database. required: false type: URL purge_keep_days: description: Specify the number of history days to keep in recorder database after a purge. required: false default: 10 type: integer purge_interval: description: How often (in days) the purge task runs. If a scheduled purge is missed (e.g., if Home Assistant was not running), the schedule will resume soon after Home Assistant restarts. You can use the service call purge when required without impacting the purge schedule. If this is set to 0 (zero), automatic purging is disabled. required: false default: 1 type: integer exclude: description: Configure which components should be excluded from recordings. required: false type: map keys: domains: description: The list of domains to be excluded from recordings. required: false type: List entities: description: The list of entity ids to be excluded from recordings. required: false type: List include: description: Configure which components should be included in recordings. If set, all other entities will not be recorded. required: false type: map keys: domains: description: The list of domains to be included in the recordings. required: false type: List entities: description: The list of entity ids to be included in the recordings. required: false type: List {% endconfiguration %}

Defining domains and entities to exclude (aka. blacklist) is convenient when you are basically happy with the information recorded, but just want to remove some entities or domains. Usually, these are entities/domains that do not change (like weblink) or rarely change (like updater or automation).

# Example configuration.yaml entry with exclude
recorder:
  purge_keep_days: 5
  db_url: sqlite:////home/user/.homeassistant/test
  exclude:
    domains:
      - automation
      - weblink
      - updater
    entities:
      - sun.sun # Don't record sun data
      - sensor.last_boot # Comes from 'systemmonitor' sensor platform
      - sensor.date

define domains and entities to record by using the include configuration (aka. whitelist) is convenient if you have a lot of entities in your system and your exclude lists possibly get very large, so it might be better just to define the entities or domains to record.

# Example configuration.yaml entry with include
recorder:
  include:
    domains:
      - sensor
      - switch
      - media_player

You can also use the include list to define the domains/entities to record, and exclude some of those within the exclude list. This makes sense if you, for instance, include the sensor domain, but want to exclude some specific sensors. Instead of adding every sensor entity to the include entities list just include the sensor domain and exclude the sensor entities you are not interested in.

# Example configuration.yaml entry with include and exclude
recorder:
  include:
    domains:
      - sensor
      - switch
      - media_player
  exclude:
    entities:
     - sensor.last_boot
     - sensor.date

If you only want to hide events from your history, take a look at the history component. The same goes for the logbook. But if you have privacy concerns about certain events or want them in neither the history or logbook, you should use the exclude/include options of the recorder component. That way they aren't even in your database, you can reduce storage and keep the database small by excluding certain often-logged events (like sensor.last_boot).

{% linkable_title Service purge %}

Call the service recorder.purge to start a purge task which deletes events and states older than x days, according to keep_days service data.

Service data attribute	Optional	Description
keep_days	yes	The number of history days to keep in recorder database (defaults to the component purge_keep_days configuration)
repack	yes	Rewrite the entire database, possibly saving some disk space. Only supported for SQLite and requires at least as much disk space free as the database currently uses.

{% linkable_title Restore State %}

If the recorder component is activated then some components support restore_state, which will restore the state of the entity after Home Assistant is started to the state before Home Assistant was stopped. Please make sure that you do not exclude the entities for which you want the state to be restored from your recordings. An incomplete list of components that currently support restore_state:

• input_boolean
• input_number
• input_select
• input_datetime
• input_text

{% linkable_title Custom database engines %}

Database engine	db_url
SQLite	sqlite:////PATH/TO/DB_NAME
MariaDB	mysql://SERVER_IP/DB_NAME?charset=utf8
MariaDB	mysql://user:password@SERVER_IP/DB_NAME?charset=utf8
MySQL	mysql://SERVER_IP/DB_NAME?charset=utf8
MySQL	mysql://user:password@SERVER_IP/DB_NAME?charset=utf8
MySQL (pymysql)	mysql+pymysql://SERVER_IP/DB_NAME?charset=utf8
MySQL (pymysql)	mysql+pymysql://user:password@SERVER_IP/DB_NAME?charset=utf8
PostgreSQL	postgresql://SERVER_IP/DB_NAME
PostgreSQL	postgresql://scott:tiger@SERVER_IP/DB_NAME
PostgreSQL (Socket)	postgresql://@/DB_NAME
MS SQL Server	mssql+pymssql://user:pass@SERVER_IP/DB_NAME?charset=utf8

If you use MariaDB 10 you need to add port 3307 (or another port depending on which port is used by, for example: your hosting provider.) to the SERVER_IP, e.g., `mysql://user:password@SERVER_IP:3307/DB_NAME?charset=utf8`.

Unix Socket connections always bring performance advantages over TCP, if the database is on the same host as the `recorder` instance (i.e. `localhost`).

If you want to use Unix Sockets for PostgreSQL you need to modify the `pg_hba.conf`. See [PostgreSQL](#postgresql)

If you are using the default `FULL` recovery model for MS SQL Server you will need to manually backup your log file to prevent your transaction log from growing too large. It is recommended you change the recovery model to `SIMPLE` unless you are worried about data loss between backups.

{% linkable_title Database startup %}

If you are running a database server instance on the same server as Home Assistant then you must ensure that this service starts before Home Assistant. For a Linux instance running Systemd (Raspberry Pi, Debian, Ubuntu and others) then you should edit the service file.

$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/home-assistant@homeassistant.service

and add the service for the database, for example, PostgreSQL:

[Unit]
Description=Home Assistant
After=network.target postgresql.service

Save the file then reload systemctl:

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload

{% linkable_title Installation notes %}

Not all Python bindings for the chosen database engine can be installed directly. This section contains additional details that should help you to get it working.

{% linkable_title MariaDB and MySQL %}

If you are in a virtual environment, don't forget to activate it before installing the mysqlclient Python package described below.

pi@homeassistant:~ $ sudo -u homeassistant -H -s
homeassistant@homeassistant:~$ source /srv/homeassistant/bin/activate
(homeassistant) homeassistant@homeassistant:~$ pip3 install mysqlclient

For MariaDB you may have to install a few dependencies. If you're using MariaDB version 10.2, libmariadbclient-dev was renamed to libmariadb-dev; please install the correct package based on your MariaDB version.

On the Python side we use the mysqlclient:

$ sudo apt-get install libmariadbclient-dev libssl-dev
$ pip3 install mysqlclient

For MySQL you may have to install a few dependencies. You can choose between pymysql and mysqlclient:

$ sudo apt-get install default-libmysqlclient-dev libssl-dev
$ pip3 install mysqlclient

After installing the dependencies, it is required to create the database manually. During the startup, Home Assistant will look for the database specified in the db_url. If the database doesn't exist, it will not automatically create it for you.

Once Home Assistant finds the database, with the right level of permissions, all the required tables will then be automatically created and the data will be populated accordingly.

{% linkable_title PostgreSQL %}

For PostgreSQL you may have to install a few dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install postgresql-server-dev-X.Y
$ pip3 install psycopg2

For using Unix Sockets, add the following line to your pg_hba.conf:

local DB_NAME USER_NAME peer

Where DB_NAME is the name of your database and USER_NAME is the name of the user running the Home Assistant instance (see securing your installation).

Reload the PostgreSQL configuration after that:

$ sudo -i -u postgres psql -c "SELECT pg_reload_conf();"
 pg_reload_conf
----------------
 t
(1 row)

A service restart will work as well.

{% linkable_title MS SQL Server %}

For MS SQL Server you may have to install a few dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install freetds-dev
$ pip3 install pymssql

If you are in a virtual environment, don't forget to activate it before installing the pymssql package.

$ sudo -u homeassistant -H -s
$ source /srv/homeassistant/bin/activate
$ pip3 install pymssql