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Main/2 Personal/Home Lab/Baerhalten/Home Assistant -> InfluxDB -> Grafana setup and debugging notes.md
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Home Assistant -> InfluxDB -> Grafana setup and debugging notes 2026-03-17 2026-03-17

Home Assistant -> InfluxDB -> Grafana setup and debugging notes

Architecture

This setup has three layers:

  1. Home Assistant generates state changes and sensor values.
  2. InfluxDB 3 Core stores that time-series data.
  3. Grafana reads from InfluxDB and visualizes it.

Network layout

  • Home Assistant runs outside the Docker Compose network.
  • InfluxDB and Grafana run together in the same Docker Compose stack.
  • Therefore:
    • Home Assistant -> InfluxDB must use the Proxmox container IP and exposed port.
    • Grafana -> InfluxDB should use the Docker service name.

Actual endpoints

Home Assistant -> InfluxDB

Home Assistant should connect to InfluxDB using:

  • Protocol: http
  • Host / URL: 192.168.194.120
  • Port: 8181
  • SSL verification: off

Reason: Home Assistant is outside the Docker network, so it cannot resolve influxdb3.

Grafana -> InfluxDB

Grafana should connect to InfluxDB using:

  • URL: http://influxdb3:8181

Reason: Grafana and InfluxDB are on the same Docker Compose network, so Docker DNS resolves influxdb3.

Docker Compose setup

The relevant Compose structure is:

services:
  influxdb3:
    image: influxdb:3-core
    ports:
      - "8181:8181"

  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    depends_on:
      - influxdb3
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"

This means:

  • InfluxDB is reachable from outside Docker at http://<proxmox-container-ip>:8181
  • InfluxDB is reachable from Grafana internally at http://influxdb3:8181

Home Assistant InfluxDB configuration

Important migration detail

Home Assistant is removing YAML-based InfluxDB connection settings.

So these connection keys should not stay in YAML:

  • api_version
  • host
  • port
  • ssl
  • verify_ssl
  • ssl_ca_cert
  • username
  • password
  • database
  • token
  • organization
  • bucket
  • path

Those should be configured through Devices & Services in the Home Assistant UI.

What can still stay in YAML

Behavior/settings like these can still stay in YAML:

  • measurement_attr
  • default_measurement
  • override_measurement
  • include
  • exclude
  • tags
  • tags_attributes

Final Home Assistant behavior setting

To get one table per entity/sensor, the key YAML setting is:

influxdb:
  measurement_attr: entity_id

Reason:

  • Default behavior grouped data into tables like W, Wh, V, %
  • That made many sensors appear "missing", because they were grouped by unit
  • measurement_attr: entity_id changes that back to one measurement/table per entity, which is easier to use in Grafana

InfluxDB concepts in this setup

Databases

We used databases such as:

  • home
  • homeassistant
  • ha_fresh

These are databases, not tables.

Tables / measurements

Inside a database, tables are created automatically when data is written.

Examples after using measurement_attr: entity_id:

  • sensor.solarnet_power_photovoltaics
  • sensor.solarnet_power_grid_export
  • sensor.solarnet_power_load_consumed

Examples from the old grouped schema:

  • W
  • Wh
  • V
  • A

Tokens and authentication

What is used where

  • Home Assistant uses an InfluxDB token to write data
  • Grafana uses an InfluxDB token to query data
  • Admin token is used for CLI/database management

Important note

Tokens and secrets that were exposed should be rotated.

How we debugged the setup

1. Verified InfluxDB is running

We checked Docker:

docker ps
docker logs --since 0.5m influxdb3

This confirmed:

  • Grafana container is running
  • InfluxDB container is running
  • InfluxDB is actively flushing writes

2. Verified databases exist

docker exec -it influxdb3 influxdb3 show databases --token "$INFLUX_ADMIN_TOKEN"

This showed databases like:

  • _internal
  • home
  • homeassistant
  • later ha_fresh

3. Verified Home Assistant can reach InfluxDB over the network

From Home Assistant shell:

curl http://192.168.194.120:8181/health

Response:

{"error": "the request was not authenticated"}

This was good because it proved:

  • DNS/IP was correct
  • network path worked
  • InfluxDB was reachable
  • only authentication remained

4. Reconfigured Home Assistant in the UI

Home Assistant InfluxDB integration was configured in Devices & Services using:

  • HTTP
  • host/IP of Proxmox container
  • port 8181
  • no SSL verification
  • organization dummy
  • bucket/database ha_fresh or similar
  • token

5. Enabled debug logs in Home Assistant

We confirmed HA was writing by seeing log lines like:

Wrote 8 events.
Wrote 10 events.

That proved:

  • Home Assistant -> InfluxDB write path works

6. Verified writes actually landed in InfluxDB

We queried InfluxDB directly:

docker exec -it influxdb3 influxdb3 query   --database ha_fresh   --token "$INFLUX_ADMIN_TOKEN"   'SELECT * FROM "W" ORDER BY time DESC LIMIT 20'

This showed fresh rows from Home Assistant sensors, including:

  • pv_power
  • solarnet_power_photovoltaics
  • solarnet_power_load_consumed
  • solarnet_power_grid_export

That proved:

  • Home Assistant -> InfluxDB works fully
  • the issue was not ingestion
  • the issue was schema / Grafana config

7. Verified Grafana container can reach InfluxDB

From inside the Grafana container, we tested:

curl -i http://influxdb3:8181/api/v3/query_sql   -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_GRAFANA_TOKEN"   -H "Content-Type: application/json"   --data '{"db":"home","q":"SHOW TABLES"}'

This working proved:

  • Docker networking is fine
  • influxdb3 resolves correctly
  • Grafana-side token auth works
  • the remaining problem was purely Grafana datasource configuration

8. Fixed Grafana datasource setup

Correct Grafana datasource basics

  • Query language: SQL or the desired mode
  • URL: http://influxdb3:8181
  • Database: the actual InfluxDB database in use
  • Token: Grafana token

Important TLS issue

Grafana originally failed with an error like:

tls: first record does not look like a TLS handshake

That happened because Grafana tried TLS/FlightSQL behavior against a plain HTTP endpoint.

Fix:

  • use the correct datasource mode
  • use the right endpoint
  • keep the connection consistent with the actual InfluxDB setup

9. Realized the schema had changed

Old schema assumption:

  • one table per sensor

New schema that appeared initially:

  • one table per unit, like W, Wh, V

That is why old queries stopped working.

Example old query:

SELECT mean("value")
FROM "sensor.solarnet_power_photovoltaics"
WHERE $timeFilter
GROUP BY time(5m) fill(none)

Equivalent query in the grouped-by-unit schema:

SELECT mean("value")
FROM "W"
WHERE
  "entity_id" = 'solarnet_power_photovoltaics'
  AND $timeFilter
GROUP BY time(5m) fill(none)

Then we changed HA back to per-entity measurements using:

influxdb:
  measurement_attr: entity_id

10. Reset the fresh database to keep it clean

After confirming the new schema worked, the goal was to keep only actually-used tables in the fresh DB.

General approach:

  • delete or recreate ha_fresh
  • reconnect HA to it
  • let HA repopulate it with only actively written entities

That leaves a clean database without old junk.

Final recommended setup

Home Assistant

  • Configure InfluxDB connection in the UI
  • Keep only behavior options in YAML
  • Use:
influxdb:
  measurement_attr: entity_id

if per-entity tables are desired

InfluxDB

  • Keep one clean database for HA data
  • Use separate tokens for:
    • admin
    • Home Assistant
    • Grafana

Grafana

  • Use datasource URL:
http://influxdb3:8181
  • Point it to the correct InfluxDB database
  • Use the Grafana token
  • Rebuild old queries if schema changed

Quick troubleshooting checklist for the future

If HA is not writing

  1. Check HA logs for InfluxDB errors
  2. Test connectivity from HA: 
    curl http://<influx-ip>:8181/health
  3. Verify token / database / organization / bucket in HA UI
  4. Query InfluxDB directly to see whether data is arriving

If Grafana shows nothing

  1. Verify datasource URL is http://influxdb3:8181
  2. Test token from inside Grafana container
  3. Confirm the right database is selected
  4. Check whether schema is per-entity or grouped-by-unit
  5. Rewrite queries accordingly

If sensors seem missing

  1. Check SHOW TABLES
  2. Query likely shared tables like W, Wh, V
  3. Check whether HA is grouping by unit instead of entity
  4. Set:
influxdb:
  measurement_attr: entity_id

if one table per sensor is preferred

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