Home Assistant - Stale & Unavailable Devices Cleanup#

This checklist tracks all stale, orphaned, and currently unavailable entities in Home Assistant grouped by physical/virtual device. Use the interactive checkboxes (- [ ]) to track your manual cleanup in the Home Assistant UI or via SSH.

Summary Stats:

• Total Devices / Groups: 5
• Total Affected Entities: 21
• Stale Restored Entities (Registry Orphans / Deprecated): 10
• Currently Unavailable Entities (Offline Hardware / Connection Loss): 11

Cleanup Methods#

1. UI Deletion (Recommended for Stale / Orphaned Entities):
   • Go to Settings > Devices & Services > Entities.
   • Filter by Status: Restored / Unavailable or search the entity ID.
   • Select the checkbox next to the entity and click Delete Selected (red button at top).
2. Device / Integration Reconfiguration:
   • If an entire device is decommissioned (e.g. old Meross Coop Door opener replaced by ESPHome), go to Settings > Devices & Services > [Integration] > Devices, click the 3 dots on the device card, and click Delete.
3. Companion App Cleanup:
   • On mobile devices, disable unused tracking sensors in HA App Settings > Companion App > Manage Sensors to remove them cleanly.

1. Meross Smart Plugs, Switches & Openers (1 Devices, 2 Entities)#

• Garage Driveway Lights (Meross Dimmer) (Garage — 2 entities — Unavailable / Offline)
  • light.garage_driveway_lights_meross_dimmer — Garage Driveway Lights (Meross Dimmer) (light) — 🔴 Offline / Unavailable
  • sensor.garage_driveway_lights_meross_dimmer_signal_strength — Garage Driveway Lights (Meross Dimmer) - signal_strength (sensor) — 🔴 Offline / Unavailable

2. Aqara, Zigbee & Matter Sensors (3 Devices, 17 Entities)#

• Aqara Motion Sensor (No Area — 5 entities — Stale Restored)

Linux & Proxmox Command Line Toolbox#

1. Storage & Disk Management#

Clean Up & Space Recovery#

# Purge unused packages and clean cache
apt autoremove --purge && apt autoclean

# Reclaim journal log space (limit to 500MB)
journalctl --vacuum-size=500M

Identify Large Files & Folders#

# List all files with human-readable sizes
ls -lah

# Summary of folder sizes in current directory
du -sh *

# Identify top 10 largest folders on root
sudo du -xh / | sort -rh | head -n 10

# Disk space usage summary (filtered for MB/GB)
du -cha --max-depth=1 / | grep -E "M|G"

Hugo Project Specifics (Size Checks)#

# Find files larger than 25MB in project
find /home/marc/hugo/canada2argentina -type f -size +25M -exec ls -lh {} +

# Count total files in the public build folder
find /home/marc/hugo/canada2argentina/public -type f | wc -l

# List top 25 largest files in project
find /home/marc/hugo/canada2argentina -type f -exec du -h {} + | sort -rh | head -n 25

Disk Health & Partitions#

# Wipe all partitions/signatures from a disk (CAUTION)
sgdisk --zap-all /dev/sdX

# Detailed SMART health report
smartctl -a /dev/sda | less

# Deep scan for bad blocks (Takes a long time)
badblocks -v /dev/sda -s

2. Proxmox & Virtualization#

VM / Container Management#

# Unlock a stuck VM or Container
qm unlock <vmid>
pct unlock <ctid>

# Resize a container disk (Final size, cannot shrink)
pct resize 103 rootfs 16G

# List running LXC containers
pct list | awk 'NR>1'

High Availability (HA) Fixes#

# Disable HA for a specific VM/CT to allow manual fixes
ha-manager set vm:200 --state disabled
ha-manager set ct:103 --state disabled

Repository & Templates#

# Update and list available CT templates
pveam update
pveam available

# List all active apt sources
grep -r '' /etc/apt/sources.list*

Proxmox Boot & Kernel#

# List and pin a specific kernel
proxmox-boot-tool kernel list
proxmox-boot-tool kernel pin 6.8.8-4-pve

3. Networking & Connectivity#

Troubleshooting & Discovery#

# Check DNS resolution
nslookup google.com
nslookup pi.hole

# Check open listening ports
ss -lntu
netstat -plant

# Performance test (Client mode, 8 parallel streams)
iperf3 -c 10.1.1.11 -P8

SSH & Remote Access#

# View real-time system logs for USB/Kernel errors
dmesg -w
dmesg -T | grep usb

# Clear "Remote Host Identification Changed" error
nano ~/.ssh/known_hosts

File Transfers (SCP)#

# Copy local images from Mac to Hugo site on Server
scp -v /Users/marc/Downloads/to_convert/* root@10.1.2.202:/home/marc/hugo/canada2argentina/static/images/

# Backup and transfer a folder between servers
tar -czvf "$(date +%Y-%m-%d_%Hh%M)_PangolinBackup.tar.gz" pangolin/
scp pangolin.tar.gz root@72.11.147.220:/home/marc/docker-compose

4. System & Hardware Info#

RAM & CPU#

# Clear RAM cache (Drop caches)
sync && echo 3 | tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

# Check ZFS ARC summary and free RAM
arc_summary -s arc && free -h

BIOS & Hardware#

# Get BIOS version and serial info
sudo dmidecode -t bios

# List SCSI and PCIe hardware
lsscsi -u
lspci

Legacy iLO3 Fix (Firefox)#

1. Type about:config in address bar.
2. Search: security.tls.version.enable-deprecated.
3. Set to: true.

5. Miscellaneous Utilities#

Permissions & Scripts#

# Make script executable and run
chmod +x ./unifi-9.0.114.sh && ./unifi-9.0.114.sh

Scheduling & Processes#

# Instant test of cron behavior (Sends message to all terminals)
* * * * * echo "Hello from cron" | wall

# Cancel a pending shutdown
shutdown -c

Print the path of the folder you are in#

# Print the path of the folder you are in
pwd

Pangolin Tunnel Setup Guide#

Current VPS and SSH Access (Verified 2026-08-12)#

The current Pangolin VPS is hosted by RackNerd:

• VPS hostname: RN-VPS
• VPS public IP: 72.11.147.220
• Operating system: Ubuntu
• SSH port: TCP 22
• Current home public IP: 208.96.219.86 (may change when the ISP address changes)

SSH access is restricted by multiple layers:

1. UFW: incoming traffic is denied by default; TCP port 22 is allowed only from the current home public IP.
2. Fail2ban: the sshd jail has the current home public IP in ignoreip, so it is not accidentally banned. The value must also be present persistently in /etc/fail2ban/jail.local.
3. CrowdSec: the Pangolin container can enforce decisions through the Ubuntu host firewall via the INPUT and DOCKER-USER iptables chains.

The backup LXC connects outbound to the VPS. It does not require an inbound connection from the VPS to the home network. If the ISP IP changes, update both UFW and Fail2ban before the next backup.