Installing Unifi Controller using the following guide:

PiMyLife

There is also a Official guide by Ubiquity that I found later, guide here

I Skipped some steps. Short version is this:

Update and prepare system with tools needed to download and install:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ca-certificates apt-transport-https

Add repository to apt.list:

echo 'deb https://www.ui.com/downloads/unifi/debian stable ubiquiti' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/100-ubnt-unifi.list

Add repository GPG Key:

sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/unifi-repo.gpg https://dl.ui.com/unifi/unifi-repo.gpg

Update 28/2 2021

Made a system update and installed Raspberry Pi Os. Unifi installs openjdk-9-jre but openjdk-8-jre is needed.

sudo apt install openjdk-8-jre

Finally, Update and install the Controller Software:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install unifi -y

There are some issues with the arguments to mongodb Not needed the last time I installed on Raspberry Pi Os version 10 (Buster) this issue could have been fixed by ubiquity

I found this link

did the following:

renamed /usr/bin/mongod to /usr/bin/mongod.bin

cd /usr/bin
sudo mv mongod mongod.bin

created new mongod file and added following content to new mongod file:

sudo nano mongod

#!/bin/bash
cleaned_args=$(echo $* | sed -e 's/--nohttpinterface//')
exec /usr/bin/mongod.bin ${cleaned_args}

This script made mongodb start with arguments supported by the version on my system.

restarted unifi.service:

sudo systemctl restart unifi.service

and the controller started successfully!

The controller interface should now be accessable on your network by visiting host address of the device you installed the controller on. I installed it on a Raspberry Pi that sits on my main network panel and could be reached at port 8443. If you installed it on your desktop/laptop you could visit the address http://localhost:8443.

The first time you do this there are some initial setup steps to make like setting up the root user, connect devices, create networks etc.

Don’t forget to open ports on the controller server:

Protocol Port Description
UDP 3478 Port used for STUN.
UDP 5514 Port used for remote syslog capture.
TCP 8080 Port used for device and controller communication.
TCP 8443 Port used for controller GUI/API as seen in a web browser
TCP 8880 Port used for HTTP portal redirection.
TCP 8843 Port used for HTTPS portal redirection.
TCP 6789 Port used for UniFi mobile speed test.
TCP 27117 Port used for local-bound database communication.
UDP 5656-5699 Ports used by AP-EDU broadcasting.
UDP 10001 Port used for device discovery
UDP 1900 Port used for “Make controller discoverable on L2 network” in controller settings.

Later I tried to adopt my AP which is a UAP-AC-LR. But it didn’t find any devices. I SSH:ed into the AP and issued the command:

set-inform http://ip-of-controller:8080/inform

It only needed a little flirting to get excited and join the team 😉

In the future I’m going to extend my network with more products from Ubiquiti. First in is a edgeRouter so I can throw away my shitty all-in-one router I got from my ISP.

Stay tuned for a review!