Tech Tips: 2026

16 January 2026

Home Assistant add Matter support and devices

As I run Home Assistant in a LXC using Portainer, I couldn't just install the python-matter-server through Add-Ons. Here are the steps that I used to get it installed.

Create python-matter-server in Portainer

Create a Volume

Portainer -> Volumes -> Add volume
matter_config

Create a Container

Image

ghcr.io/home-assistant-libs/python-matter-server:stable

Advanced container settings

Commands & logging

We want to override the listen address to allow only local connections from Home Assistant
Command: --storage-path /data --paa-root-cert-dir /data/credentials --listen-address=127.0.0.1

Volumes

/data -> matter_config

Network

Network -> host

Restart policy

Restart Policy -> Unless stopped

Click "Deploy the container"

Add Matter integration to Home Assistant

Settings -> Devices & services

Add integration

Matter
Since they are on the same host, use the default address

Adding Matter Devices

Install the Home Assistant App on your phone
Login
Make sure your phone is on the WiFi that you want the matter device on (eg. your IOT network)
Follow these steps in the App:

Hamburger menu
Devices & services
Matter
Add Device
No, It's new
Scan the QR code on the device
Follow the steps

Appendix

Sources

04 January 2026

Portainer and Docker 29

Portainer was not able to access the local environment with the following error: "Failed loading environment The environment named local is unreachable". Then I found out that it was not compatible with Docker 29. Here are the steps that I used to downgrade Docker to a compatible version.

Downgrade Docker

Check the version installed

apt list --installed docker-ce

Check for available version

apt-cache policy docker-ce | head -n 30

Downgrade

DOCKER_VERSION="5:28.5.2-1~debian.12~bookworm"
apt-get install docker-ce-cli="$DOCKER_VERSION" docker-ce="$DOCKER_VERSION" docker-ce-rootless-extras="$DOCKER_VERSION"

Restart

shutdown -r now

Appendix

Sources

https://github.com/orgs/portainer/discussions/12926

02 January 2026

Proxmox SATA DVD drive passthrough

I had a DVD movie that was only readable by my SATA DVD drive. This meant that I needed to pass it through to my VM. However, it appears that it is not possible at this time without doing an iSCSI workaround. Since I only needed to do this for a single DVD, I didn't want to do something that complicated. What I decided to do was to use an LXC to create an ISO that I could use in the VM.

LXC DVD drive passthrough

Create a new LXC (I used the debian version and upped memory to 2 GiB and storage to 8 GiB)

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/community-scripts/ProxmoxVE/main/ct/debian.sh)"

Passthrough the DVD drive

Container -> Resources
Add -> Device Passthrough
Device Path: /dev/sr0 (or whatever number your DVD drive is)
Click Add

Install dvdbackup, libdvdcss2, and ddrescue

apt-get install dvdbackup libdvdcss2 gddrescue
dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg

Create the ISO

dvdbackup -i /dev/sr0 -I # unlock the DVD
ddrescue -b2048 -d -r500 /dev/sr0 disc.iso disc.mapfile # Create the ISO

Appendix

Sources