---
layout: page
title: "Manual installation on a Raspberry Pi"
description: "Instructions to install Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian Lite."
date: 2016-09-05 16:00
sidebar: true
comments: false
sharing: true
footer: true
redirect_from: /getting-started/installation-raspberry-pi/
---

This installation of Home Assistant requires the Raspberry Pi to run [Raspbian Lite](https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/). The installation will be installed in a [Virtual Environment](/docs/installation/virtualenv) with minimal overhead. Instructions assume this is a new installation of Raspbian Lite.

Connect to the Raspberry Pi over SSH. Default password is `raspberry`.
You will need to enable SSH access. The Raspberry Pi website has instructions [here](https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/).

```bash
$ ssh pi@ipadress
```

Changing the default password is encouraged.

```bash
$ passwd
```

Update the system.

```bash
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade -y
```

Install the dependencies.

```bash
$ sudo apt-get install python3 python3-venv python3-pip
```

Add an account for Home Assistant called `homeassistant`.
Since this account is only for running Home Assistant the extra arguments of `-rm` is added to create a system account and create a home directory.

```bash
$ sudo useradd -rm homeassistant
```

Next we will create a directory for the installation of Home Assistant and change the owner to the `homeassistant` account.

```bash
$ cd /srv
$ sudo mkdir homeassistant
$ sudo chown homeassistant:homeassistant homeassistant
```

Next up is to create and change to a virtual environment for Home Assistant. This will be done as the `homeassistant` account.

```bash
$ sudo su -s /bin/bash homeassistant
$ cd /srv/homeassistant
$ python3 -m venv .
$ source bin/activate
```
Once you have activated the virtual environment you will notice the prompt change and then you can install Home Assistant.

```bash
(homeassistant) homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv/homeassistant $ pip3 install homeassistant
```

Start Home Assistant for the first time. This will complete the installation, create the `.homeassistant` configuration directory in the `/home/homeassistant` directory and install any basic dependencies.

```bash
(homeassistant) $ hass
```

You can now reach your installation on your Raspberry Pi over the web interface on [http://ipaddress:8123](http://ipaddress:8123).

