alt Hacker NewsUbiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting
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># src: Mirano Verhoef ># Go into root >su - > ># Install all required dependencies apt update ; apt upgrade ; apt install podman -y ; cd ~ ; mkdir 4.2.23 ; cd 4.2.23 ; wget https://fw-download.ubnt.com/data/unifi-os-server/8b93-linux... ; chmod +x 8b93-linux-x64-4.2.23-158fa00b-6b2c-4cd8-94ea-e92bc4a81369.23-x64 ; ./8b93-linux-x64-4.2.23-158fa00b-6b2c-4cd8-94ea-e92bc4a81369.23-x64 install
This is some of the jankiest install installations I've seen in a long time. Not even using && to stop on an error, just plowing ahead for more errors to stack up.
After many (many!) years I finally got around to my childhood dreams of building a home network rack, centered around the Unifi stack. I've got the new 10 gig switch, the dream machine SE, a bunch of cameras, and I've been very impressed with their stuff. The experience "just works" and feels like they take inspiration from Apple. The whole camera setup can be "closed" by shutting off outside access, this self-hosting option takes it all a step further for those who care deeply about privacy!
I really wish PC with some good m.2 wifi cards in it were more of an option for wireless. PC based routers are awesome, there's great software. It's just the wifi situation keeping us tethered to very special boxes.
Even openwrt has severe limits. It's up to you to flap on all manners of optimizations and tweaks to what is basically a hostapd.cond file. Hostapd.conf is the gatekeeper of one of the most important connective channels on the planet, and we collectively know so so so little of it.
At least the m.2 & m-pcie cards have finally started getting somewhat better availability. It's still 90% Compex reference designs, but they're somewhat purchaseable, after years of this stuff being super hard to get ahold of. Seems usually to be ~$200, for a card that'll do wifi-7 2x2 5+5GHz (ex: Compex WLTE7002E55, using Qualcomm's QCN6274).
There was a lot of drama around Ubiquity a few years back. Happy to see the company is still alive and the indicator that they're coming back around to self hosting. All the hardware I bought a decade ago is still running fine (without any of the cloud software) and it looks like their newer stuff would be worth the upgrade (10gb everywhere, easily, at last).
I was just about to shell out $2k on unifi equipment for my home but after reading this discussion it's sounding like a much worse proposition. Sadly, it doesn't seem like there's a solid competitor either. Mikrotik seems like more complication than I want or need. I'm now looking into TP-Link Omada, but the entire point was to move away from consumer gear. Sigh. I guess I'll just keep making do with my old Orbi Netgear setup for now.
I may be misunderstanding this, but as I recall originally the only way to run unifi was to have self hosted it through an app on a Windows machine on your network, then it went to the cloud, then cloud only, and now it seems to be coming back to self hosted? Good if so. (UniFi is their app/system to configure your ubiquiti network devices and to gather stats from them, it really did change the networking industry for such a low cost product at the time)
Recently switched from a UDM Pro Max to a Firewalla Gold Pro and couldn't be happier about the move. Software that works > software that has everything but requires magic to get checkboxes to adhere to a save state-this is a common issue with UniFi Network options. They need far better QA before I recommend anyone use them as an OS.
1 of numerous examples: https://community.ui.com/questions/Device-Static-IP-Not-Savi...
What does “OS” in the name stands for? My first thought was “Operating System”, but that doesn’t make sense when what they are providing is a server via a docker container. No one says they installed the Elastic OS…
Ubiquiti themselves call it “software package”:
> Self‑hosted software package that delivers UniFi Network [1]
My second thought was “Open Source”, but the absence of comments complaining about the license make me believe it isn’t this.
Any guesses?
How is this different than the docker container I am running now? I must be missing a detail or two.
If I were a hospital, financial brokerage, etc, I would use Cisco.
But since we're a small business < 50 employees, with 4 sites (office, call center, colocation, cloud) Ubiquiti makes it unbelievably easy to administer, even though I know I'm leaving plenty of performance on the table in terms of switching performance, latency, QoS, and throughput.
Surprised at S2S VPN performance at these price points as well! More than adequate!
I've been self-hosting a Unifi controller (now called 'Unifi Network') for years in a Docker container, and before that I'd run it on a Windows machine whenever I needed to make changes to the configuration - I assume this pivot to call the self-hosted version 'UniFi OS' implies a future where more than just the Network application can be self-hosted.
This is great and I hope they release all the other apps that right now can only be added on a Dream Router/Dream machine, etc.
What I would like to see:
1. IPv6. I tried for several days to patch various warts in the Unifi Network Server (the unofficial docker container), to make it run on IPv6 only. Everytime I managed yet another horrible hack in some library they are using, I discovered 4 other bugs that prevent IPv6 only operation. There's always stuff that expects an IPv4 address in Unifi.
2. Managing my own hardware gateway from Unifi UI. I get it that Unifi doesn't make money from supporting this, but it would be very cool. Their gateway is not super complicated, and there are materials explaining how to "adopt" some random device, in the end you still need a cert from the company to make it work.
I love the idea of centrally managing network infrastructure that can be ‘self-contained’ in a local service (whether a device, VM, or container).
TP-Link offers a similar solution via their ‘Omada’-enabled devices. Unfortunately, mixing different brands can feel counterproductive, so there’s significant vendor lock-in.
Does anyone know of a similar solution for OpenWrt devices?
Original announcement from UniFI: https://blog.ui.com/article/introducing-unifi-os-server
> Next, we need to log in with our Ubiquiti account.
Right. They don't learn.
> You can also proceed without an Ubiquiti account
Can you? Or you have to make one and only then maybe possibly to some extent run the thing without one?
The common sentiment is that Mikrotik is the gold standard for reliability and, not talking about the terrible UI, you're considered an Adult in networking if you choose to manually configure individual interfaces to do basic things, and it 'just works'
Except when it doesn't, and you have to stop your day job to troubleshoot your home network because an interface literally vanishes overnight, when you hadn't touched the router in months.
Then there's the wifi radio settings and the terrible CAPman, where I had to Google radio frequency settings and channel configuration (why?). In any case what's this power good for? what's a use case that you want to give up ease of use and central management for configuration power?
I'm moving to all Ubiquiti stuff, and so far I love the management tooling that already alerts me and shows me latency stats and packet drops on my network in a status page, including a log. I love that I can use the app to connect my phone to an IPSEC tunnel at home, that I can quickly connect sites.
Mikrotik's winbox and web configuration UI seem like they were written by lone developers in basements who never interacted with humans.
(As non-curmudgeonly as possible, this is a genuine question I promise!)
I see a bunch of projects and companies these days calling their product an ‘OS’. I'm not too much of a stick-in-the-mud to not see parallels between traditional OSes and things like Kubernetes (which actually doesn't brand itself as an OS, confusingly enough), but I'm genuinely very confused as to what it's supposed to signify in the branding of projects like these — e.g. this seems to just be a server that runs on Windows or Linux and provides a control panel for your UniFi devices and account. Could someone explain to me what the ‘OS’ is supposed to mean here? (Even if it's something very vague like ‘a sense of being a complete solution’!)
So UniFi stack is the better alternative to Ring (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44620002)?
Is UniFi the sweetspot for prosumer networking if one wants switches, APs, cameras, etc. without a CCNP?
This is full circle. You used to be able to host the unifi stack on anything that would run Java. Glad to see them returning to their roots!
It would be cool if they brought back the self-hosted security camera solution UniFi Protect.
I set up a small Ubiquiti setup with Pi-hole, then moved into a home serviced by AT&T Fiber, which comes with an all in one fiber modem and WiFi hub. I started using it before I could unpack, then did a little research on how I could disable WiFi, DHCP, and/or DNS in order to use my own equipment. The WiFi isn't great in all parts of the house so I planned on setting up APs at strategic points. But of course laziness, fear of stuff breaking and my family getting mad at me, and WiFi entrenchment has stopped me from using any of the equipment I bought. I would one day love to switch back over, but I just don't see it happening soon.
I have always viewed Ubiquiti and UniFi as serving only the business and enterprise market, not consumer grade individuals like me. I have gotten frustrated with the Netgear and TP-Link grade of WiFi equipment available to the consumer customer and have now ventured into UniFi. My main challenge was just getting a single SSID to work around a large home. Mesh WiFi held a promise until I found out that they really aren’t that good unless you are using backhaul wiring. Companies have been using single SSIDs for decades and that’s where the solution was.
You could always self-host UniFi Network. https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012282453-Self-Host...
This launches with UniFi Network and UniFi InnerSpace, which is a deployment visualization tool. I assume they'll add more of the applications to UniFi OS in the future
This looks to be an executable that deploys podman containers for you, that is bizarre, and makes me question why it's called Unifi 'OS'?
If they add 'Protect' to this, it would make it much easier to start building a unifi network piecemeal.
I already have a debian-running storage server, that would be a good fit for running this, and it would enable me to start adding their cameras without going all-in in and grabbing a new router and access points at the same time.
Does it support UniFi Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)? https://www.unihosted.com/blog/understanding-unifi-deep-pack...
So I’m confused, this is just the network management appliance right, you can’t use this to make a switch or firewall?
Seems like a strange sink of capex because the pocket sized network appliance is cheep.
This is awesome because of how un-Apple-like it is. With Apple, they leverage the ecosystem and force you to buy everything to make a cohesive experience. Want to have cellular on your Mac? We expect you to buy an iPhone and a laptop and tether.
If you want to have unifi WAPS without the UCG - this enables that. It's awesome that they do that, even though right now, it's the cohesiveness of the Unifi ecosystem that is a big driver in their success.
Whoa this is pretty cool. I’m pretty into homelab stuff but self hosting your own gateway/firewall/router can get pretty tiring. I tried OPNSense and it worked great for a while. I tried self hosting unifiOS (I actually don’t get what’s different from the docker one from back then compared to this one) but it gets annoying. Was easier just to buy a cloud ultra for $130.
Love Ubiquiti devices. Easy to manage in environments who don't have strict requirements.
The OS being proprietary was the ONLY reason I doubted to commit to the platform, but this is amazing. If this actually works, I'm comfortable to 100% commit into their stuff.
What is the use case for this? Their cloud gateways are very affordable. Aside from the academic aspects of it I don’t see why I would want to run a home brew version of their cloud gateway.
I will always moan about Ubiquiti's odd software distribution choices. Just publish an OCI image, for goodness sake. "Installer" executables on Linux.. shudders
What is the advantage of using this over existing OSS solutions?
I have a full Ubiquiti stack at home (router, switches, cameras and APs) and they are great products. The UI keeps getting better and that’s a plus!
Just bought a dream 7 and so far it’s the best router I’ve owned. The software portal is a cut above
Any hardware recommendation to run unifi on? Curious what people recommend for that kind of staff
I own a host of Unifi hardware, but some of it is ridiculously vulnerable to power outages. UDM SE got bricked when I was moving and absentmindedly unplugged it without shutting it down first. Ubiquiti replaced it but cmon...
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I have nothing but good things to say about ubiquiti. I run their cameras door bell and network switches at my house and have had nearly 100% uptime for years. Their ui constantly improves and it’s very well integrated into home assistant.
Lotta haters out there but this is just advanced as I want to get in my home lab; and the racks are just so cool even with their gimmicky front touch panel, it’s just so sexy when all the displays in the rack sync up on their animations. Whoever designed these things really had an eye for design.