Raspberry Pi Home Server - UniFi Controller Tutorial
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- I've suggested doing it, but never shown it done. Today, we're installing a Ubiquiti UniFi controller onto a Raspberry Pi 4. And we've got power left over for the next project too.
Check out the Fractal Design Define 7 here: amzn.to/2v3GSL0
Or the Define 7 XL, if that's more your style: amzn.to/2Q0DfwW
But first... What am I drinking???
Coffee. Too early for anything else.
Follow these written instructions to get your UniFi controller installed onto a Raspberry Pi: pimylifeup.com...
Links to items below may be affiliate links for which I may be compensated
Raspberry Pi 4 2GB: amzn.to/2znPSwV
Raspberry Pi 4 Aluminum VESA Case: amzn.to/2LZQxHg
Raspberry 3B+/4 PoE HAT: amzn.to/3d58lgl
Ubiquiti UniFi USG: amzn.to/2X4lbWx
Netgear 8-Port PoE Unmanaged switch: amzn.to/36A1pFf
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Music:
No Good Layabout by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.fi...
License: creativecommons...
Time Stamps
1:21 - Hardware Used
6:58 - Raspberry Pi Configuration
11:37 - UniFi Install
14:11 - UniFi Quickstart
If there is an option to put more than one like I certainly do it. Nice job
Did you consider installing docker and running the unifi controller in a docker container? You can easily add more containers to monitor and manage your network such as grafana.
Was MongoDB required?
FYI, TH-cam has implemented a feature called "Video Chapters" to videos replacing the need to add time stamps in the description. The descriptions of the time stamps will then be shown by the time in the video progress bar.
@@MysticWhiteDragon. I was just coming to mention that 😎
To make it work, you put the timestamps in the description and the first stamp has to be 0:00 If it is any other number, the time stamps will work but the chapter markers will not. I love it!
set password, to "notraspberry" got it, thanks for this video :)
15:42 don't forget to set "aVerySimplePassword" for your UniFi Controller
You beat me to it! :-)
"I'll be showing you how to auto update your package."
Tip while setting up, create a basic file called ssh on the boot partition and ssh will be active on first boot, saves you the headaches of getting hdmi to work
Works after first boot too
I've seen a few videos on how to do this and this is by the best. It's not the information that makes the best. It's how it presented. Very well done mate.
"Not everybody wants a full server rack in their house" - saddest statement ever
Buy their Dream Machine...yes that is the name 🙂
@@kenneth_jensen while the Dream Machine has the controller built in, it can't connect to a remote controller. That was one of his requirements.
I want a full rack... but I don't have money to buy the rack.
Took approx 30 mins to build and configure, did a backup of my config from my Windows PC and restored it and, after the 15 mins it took APs decided to adopt, it just worked. Thanks for making it easy.
The 30 mins included getting the SSL cert working from my public CA
"A screw hole is a screw hole"
- Craft Computing 2020
We just got done setting up our new Ubiquiti based home network, though we opted for a separate Edge Router X and an Unifi Switch-8 rather than the USG.
The year is 2020 and we still have use for a 3.5 floppy. Great video
The only one Who save my life. Tanks for your sharing and expertise that help me a lot to configure my unifi controller on raspi 3B bullseye.
I try to be a minimalist when it comes to software on my computer. That said, I thought I'd share that you can ssh into computers on your network via the Command Prompt built into windows.
Very helpful video. Love the comment "a screw hole is a screw hole." Using the links to buy and then build mine. Thanks.
I noticed there was an option for the RPi PoE HAT with a built-in cooling fan for $3.00 :D
Gets what ya pay for.
I much preferred the thermal performance with the fan armour case like this one
thepihut.com/products/dual-fan-heatsink-case-for-raspberry-pi-4
@@Th3_Gael you can't install a PoE hat with that case
Great video Jeff! My friend is a Unifi user... I'll show him this video! Also I bet I know what the DNS filter is, but I'll post on that video if/when I'm right. ;)
Hi there, I have a question. When you set a static ip I saw you placed it as 192.168.x.x but my gateway ip is a 10.0.0.1 should I set it in 10.x.x.x format or 192.x.x.x format? Sorry if it's a dumb question but I just want to be sure.
Something I found out this week... put an empty file called ssh in the root of the sd card.
Jup does help quite a bit when you have only a laptop on the location qlso safes time when you can configure everything using onpy ssh
Great video! I got one of these this week to install Redmine and an SQL database on. With WINE, these things are absolutely killer. Definitely consider doing a video on the possibilities with WINE.
WOW. Very timely: just when I decided to do the same, I see a proven solution. (but will do it for my nanoHD)
Re: Screwdriver you need to open it inside the case. It's funny, the video I just finished watching was a wild cockatoo solving a puzzle to get at the goodies inside. Check for hidden cameras!
Per your advice I made sure to change the default “raspberry” password. It is now “password” thanks for the tip
Oh, I thought he said to set it to 'notraspberry'.
just did this a couple of months ago. well worth it IMHO. more useful to use a raspi than their cloud key
Also a lot cheaper
Regarding the rasberry's name:To help newly installed basestations to automatically find their controller (even in complex networks) it is good practice to call the controller "unifi" (computer name and dns name).
That really only matters if you have setup multiple VLANs, and your APs are already in a separate broadcast domain as your Pi. Very rare in home networks, and not common for even small and large business networks to configure APs for deployment.
Unifi is the DNS A-NAME the APs will look for on a network. The method I would recommend is still naming the Raspberry Pi a name that makes sense for the physical device, and creating a new A-NAME record "Unifi" that points to the IP of the Pi.
I'm going to upgrade my home network sometime.
Currently running an old Fujitsu (Pentium G645, 4GB RAM, Intel Dualport Gigabit NIC) with pfsense, connected to my 1000/1000 internet, a Linksys 8-port switch and a Unifi AP Lite for my wireless units.
I will in the future upgrade to 10Gbe in my home as I will be able to get 10Gbe Internet hopefully this year.
I'm also thinking of moving my servers out of their tower cases and into rack mounted units to clean everything up.
Great video as always =)
Hard to beat PF Sense, it's almost limitless. The UDMPro would likely be your upgrade...but it's well limited. May be better off keeping your PF Sense running.
Great Vid... Thanks! Guess I'll ask the obvious question... why does Unify desire to have a controller hosted not on its own hardware?
Some installations, like in a home, needs very little computing power to run the controller. Other larger installations, like when you're running the WiFi for an entire sports stadium or a a multi-floor office building, needs much more computing power. Or if you're a Managed Service Provider (MSP) you may need to manage dozens or hundreds of separate Unifi installations. The controller software can handle all those situations. By allowing the controller to run on hardware of your choosing, Ubiquiti don't need too offer hardware to cover all the possibilities.
"A screw hole is a screw hole."
Well said.
Great video! Clear & detailed introduction to Raspberry Pi, Linux & Networking for beginners!
Whats the advantage of spending $110 for this OR $99 for a plain ole Unifi cloud key?
Power loss would corrupt the controller wouldn't it? I think that's why the newer cloud key controllers have a small battery and auto shutdown feature. To make it viable you'd have to put in a ups that's capable of shutting the pi down normally and restarting when it has a power input. I was looking at something like the WittyPi3 which I think can accept power input from batteries.
Useful, thanks. Please consider using larger fonts for videos, many folks are limited to 480p or watch from 10 feet away on a TV.
Agreed. Watching on mobile and this was impossible to read
I don't know why it took me so long to subscribe, but just did! Gonna stay tuned for the second video in the series.
You're an absolute legend mate, can't tell you how many sites and videos I went through to get my USG going. Followed your steps - FIRST TIME it all worked!!!! USG, Raspberry Pi (Zero), 3 Access points, Modem, etc, and one very happy family. I can stop cussing now ;-)
You just saved me like $200. Thank you.
I install this for all my friends/family:
Cheap quad nic fanless pc, install pfSense on it. This is the firewall and router, kicks the shit out of the Ubiqity guy.
I roll with unify ap pros and have them managd from my remote controller (no local controller).
I often leave a rPi with Raspbian and pi-hole one it. Nice thing here is I have a local desktop I can access for support. pfBlockerNG is significantly better than pi-hole, but way more complex and the pi-hole captures most needs.
A pi as a local unifi controller is a good idea though. I would suggest setting up a OpenVPN link from the rPi back your home for easy remote access.
That is awesome, I never thought about using a Pi as a Unifi Server. Never been a fan of having access tied to my desktop or having to install Java
"Who uses an IPv6 address at home, you guys are wierd" hilarious!
Nobody does.
edit /boot/cmdline.txt append " disable_ipv6=1", reboot.
I run my USG on PoE - I just stick a PoE splitter next to it on the wall. This is much better than that power brick!
How does this work?
@@davidbaxter6146 input to the splitter is an Ethernet cable carrying PoE from a PoE switch. There are two outputs from the splitter. One is regular Ethernet without PoE and the other is a power connector that you plug into the power in on a Pi.
hey there, i am a brazillian so the money rate due the covid isnt that great to buy eletronics, instead of buying a raspberry for like home assistant, unifi...(these ubiquit things are unnecessary expensive) so i plan to build a home server(virtualization) with a dual x99 and only one 12/24 xeon and 1x32 ecc for now, is a good setup/idea?
The new pi 4 8 gb has lots of memory for server applications, I would power the pi separately use a case with air cooling and a ssd drive set up from Etsy case builder.. over clock 2.0 speed wise but nice!
The 8GB literally came out 12 hours after posting this video 😂
Nice work!
actually that config usg and rasberry its 3.5 years old that usg in a few month will stop producing, and the new series come out, so 3 years ago was top edge, didn't need a poe for power, in our days the gen2 has one. these video will be good 3 years ago not in our days but as always i will put you my thumbs up for the video.
There's nothing wrong with Putty Jeff, don't let them bully you. I use it too. :-)
Here is a tip add an ssh.txt file after flashing the Raspberry pi OS image into the boot partition, which will enable SSH without connecting a monitor and Ubuntu for pi already has SSH enabled
Watch out, UniFi distribution list doesn't support arm64 (yet)! So if you run 64bit OS on your Raspberry Pi (such as Ubuntu Server 20.04 64bit), your only option is to do install .deb (12:59:00) manually. (In that case, don't forget about Java 8 (openjdk), and `haveged` for better random number generator)
I was about to install Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64bit and use this tutorial. Do you know if the UniFi distribution list supports 64 bit yet?
00:12:59 ?
Great video, but have in mind, the USG will max out at approximately 100 Mbit/s. Go with their dream machine or pro 👍
Only if you enable advanced features. The system will warn you if you go to enable those options. The DM or Pro are priced well outside of his scenario with a simple setup for parents.
"If all you need is a basic router, the USG gets the job done. It can route at 1 Gbps, but performance quickly suffers as you enable security features, especially the Intrusion Detection System or Intrusion Prevention System (IDS/IPS). With those features enabled, the USG drops to around 85 Mbps of throughput."
@@LongDono I tend to agree. In my opinion those features is part of a basic system, especially IPS and at that price point.
The DM is also not priced compare to the USG and one of their access points with MiMo.
Also parents will have visits from their grandchildren which consumes a lot of Internet 😁
@@kenneth_jensen the DM can't be managed remotely and this was one of Jeff's criteria. Not sure if that applies to the DM Pro.
Jeff it ain’t “day drinkin’’ if you do not start early!!
Aaahhhhh! The music!!! Stooooop!
Also, we want to see the "things" and the process, not you. Zoom in on the hardware/desk and your screens and/or use way bigger fonts.
You've got GREAT content. Please make it more useful/consumable/palatable.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was supposed to be catering my content to you specifically. Any other changes I should make while I'm at it? Shave the beard? Maybe change the wood wall for some neopixel panels?
I don't care for the time, there must be beer in the video and a beer review!!
Hey Jeff... Was that cream in your beer? Looked like tasty coffee to me. Hazelnut? After all it was 8 a.m.! ;->
Thanks for the video. Great Idea hosting on a Pi, and much more secure hosting the Unifi controller in-house... I LIKE IT!
Question: the POE Hat - it's IEEE 802.3af Compliant and I'm confused about that. Can I directly connect passive POE (24v) to that thing, or should I just use port 4 of the Edgerouter X up to the Nano M5?
Great video! Just setup my Ubiquiti gear recently and was considering moving the controller to an Rpi. Loving the mug, got a link for it?
Actually I do! amzn.to/36AwZTq
looking forward to watching the next videos
I have been using odroids for a few years. Looks like they finally fix the issues with running on raspi. Might give these a shot again...
Can you run pi-hole and the UniFi controller on the same pi?
Yep!
what is the max version for legacy unify product (e.g. UAP) ? Can we still get it from UBNT?
If you had your Swiss army knife, you wouldn't have had to worry about the screwdriver being stuck in the case!
I wish I would have thought to grab a swiss army knife during the shoot. It occurred to me during editing :-D
A Swiss army knife that *hopefully* has a phillips bit
Love the video, more pi things please. I got my parents setup with their own pi hole, they are happy.
Great tutorial! One comment: The console screen are very hard to read on a 13 inch laptop.
you can just add "ssh" textfile to the SDcard to enable ssh out of the box . so you don't have to do the setup with a monitor and keyboard , just right into ssh :)
i always wanted to make mirror with raspberry ;D this was really informative
Tried this a few months ago on a 3b and it just hammered the CPU constantly
Raspberry Pi is redundant in this installation. You have mentioned that you have a cloud instance of Unifi controller, just point USG and other Unifi devices to your Controller. You can also set DNS to go through your remote server too. One DNS server to manage in case you want to change DNS rules.
Beer and ice cream for breakfast, Krispy Kremes for lunch.
Be careful with that Pi 4, they're still pretty toasty at idle!
The overheating was fixed pretty quickly after launch. You can safely use one without cooling now. Cooling is handy for overclocking though, I run all mine at 2.147 Ghz. :)
It's not that most of the people have the space to place a rack, I think it is more about prices. I cannot buy a rack, as the prices of whatever it is attached to it goes above what should be normal for walking people.
The 2GB model was just reduced to $35 because they released the 8GB version!
The 2GB was price reduced to $35 in late February when the 1GB was discontinued. That happened months before the 8GB was released and is unrelated. Regardless, still a welcome change.
Very informative video :-) have you done any monitoring on how many watts the combined setup requires from the PoE Switch? (using the UCTRONICS PoE HAT)
Hello, what made you choose a usg over say an edge router, a pfsense box, or really any other option. I am looking into different options for my own network and am curious what your thought process was.
Hey awesome Video! I have a question. I was wondering if this would help me in my current Situation. I am living in a house in our backyard approximately 20 Meters away from the "Main house". As you could guess there are some Walls in the way (at least 3).
So, my Internet connection isn't very good. I have added an accespoint and incoperated it into out Networks via mesh but still the connection from my Devices arent awesome.
I thought about setting up a home Networks like you did to take of all smart home Devices off the access Point and connect them to my own home Network. Would this help?
I really appreciate if you could help me :)
20m, trench a wire in conduit. Your speeds and upgradability will greatly increase
I almost felt that with the money you spent on the pi, the hat and the case, you could of buy the cloud key gen1 unless you plan to do more on the pi other than just using it as the cloud controller but if so, you would of get a version of pi 4 with more RAM, right?
Did you set up automatic updates for the Pi? e.g. security updates? What are your thoughts on unattended (security) upgrades for a long-running server?
Thank You! Excellent Tutorial
Just want to ask if i already have another Router and i just want setup some Ubiquiti AP. Can the Unifi controller still work?
You can set up openvpn server on your PI. that way you don't have to pay those scammers for the very few and niece security benefits vpn does provide. plus you can access your home network (as vpn was designed to do in the first place). it's really handy to have access to your mounted storage on your PI as a bootleg NAS, or your printer without opening ports. and of course openvpn is completely open source and you can drive security through the roof if you're paranoid like me. 128B preshared key + 4096B encrypted private key combo. I don't think anyone is going to attempt that until there is a flaw in the protocol or server software like buffer overflow RCE or something, which would get patched probably reasonably soon.
great. looking forward to the next videos!
Great video! Love your style. 👍
I ran a homeseer server on a similar raspberry pi / sd card setup and the SD card ended up corrupting on me (the software writes to a log file which eventually got corrupted).
my question is - is it possible to image a backup once you have everything set up and configured? I would hate to have the wifi taken down if the controller went down, which seems like it would be the case. Or am i misinterpreting?
I know so many people like ubiquity but no PoE is one almost non starter. Isn’t the system proprietary? Then you have an account with them where you manage several clients from? What if they get hacked, is that relevant? What if they monitor your data? Are you encrypting before you send it? I am probably completely off base, I’m just learning about computers so could you explain, thanks for the great video, minus the intro
liked the vid, so (correct me if I'm wrong here) you've basically turned the Pi into a Router? So your Ubiquiti UniFi is your modem and the Pi the Router? unless I've totally missed the plot on this? this does interest me...
The Raspberry Pi is only running the controller software that is used to configure the Unifi router and access point. The Unifi router (the Security Gateway) plugs into his existing modem, and the access point and Raspberry Pi plug into the Security Gateway.
The controller software is a Java app so can run on pretty much anything. Ubiquiti also sells a hardware device with the controller software pre-installed.
Interesting that UniFi requires a host machine. Is that just this model or are they all like this?
Be aware, that Unifi controller stores it's data in MongoDB. One power outage and whole database gets corrupted, whole Unify controller will not start anymore and nothing will work.
What can I say... MongoDB was a stupid move from Ubiquiti :) backup configuration constantly, and for raspberry PI there's one good life-hack - you can create solution where it is powered by power bank, and powerbank itself is charged from wall socket. Basically what they've done with Unifi Cloud Key v2.
Or... You know... Connect it to a UPS like you should.
Thats fixed several versions ago. Happened to me a few times.
AmarilloWireless they stopped using MongoDB?
Ten Gigabit you're suggesting buying and using UPS just for RPi? 🙂because only way how this can even help, is by sending signal to RPi directly and informing to shutdown safely. Otherwise, it's same poweroff, just 30seconds later
X1000 yes for a USG with P.O.E!!!!!
I am getting this error... 'Connecting to dl.ui.com (dl.ui.com)|13.226.194.172|:443... failed: No route to host.
'
Interseting concept. I have a USG and Cloud Key Gen2. How is doing this going to benefit me.
I have the same configuration as you. I think he is using a Raspberry Pi as a replacement for the Cloud Key Gen2.
If that is the case, is there any advantage of using Raspberry Pi over the Cloud Key Gen2, other than cost?
why did you go with the USG and and UDM? Maybe I'm wrong but I believe in general the UDM is a better deal overall. Would love to here your thoughts.
The UDM can't be managed remotely.
I'm want to install the Unify controller on a Raspberry Pi 3b+ with a 32GB ram card, that is already on network running PiHole and Unbound. Is that possible or should I use a new Raspberry Pi?
Hi, when you do this raspberry unifi, do you still need to buy the unify box?
Do you need a microSD card for this Raspberry Pi setup? It's not included in the hardware used.
Can someone advise ? ... This unify gateway's features like firewall, is this something that is included in the edge routers ? E.g edge router x or edge router 12 ? Thank you.
Great video. Thank you. Could you tell me how to use my SSL certificate with this type of install? I had it up and running with no issues when I was running the controller software on Windows.
Hey, Jeff. Thanks for the videos! I like the depth of content and the concise speed of presentation.
Question for you (or others). What do get out of this assembly of network components that you can't get from Ubiquiti's Dream Machine All-in-One?
The Dream Machine can't be managed remotely. You can only use the built in controller to manage it.
Not a problem is many cases, but Jeff said he wanted to be able to manage remotely so he didn't have to go to his in-laws house.
Would this still be worth it? In the middle of the installation I just read that 32bit support was going to be deprecated. Does this mean a Rpi4 is no longerr suitable candidate for a controller after this happens?
This dude is a brewmaster
I don’t understand this whole ubiquity unify system. It takes a standard router and breaks it into a bunch of different pieces. Wouldn’t it be easier just to buy a linksys wrt router and flash dd-wrt or some other firmware on it and manage that device. Then you have a modem router and maybe a switch. Vs a modem a brain box thingy and controller a switch and one or 2 or 3 waps ( if applicable). It seems overly complicated for no reason. I will admit I’m not a networking guy. I can build and troubleshoot PCs all day long. Networking I’m just so so at.
The components tend to be higher quality and it offers more administrative control, but honestly it just seems like a solution in search of a problem. There are a lot of things you can do with this that you can't do with a consumer router setup, but it's also a lot of stuff that most people have no need of. It's overly complicated, and I have no earthly idea why someone would choose it as the best option for a household that they readily describe as not being techy.
Its designed for large installs. I use unifi at work, we have 3 buildings networked together. Wireless AP's in each building. It makes for easy management for the entire network. Sadly the nanobeams can't sync up to a unifi network. Luckily the UNMS controller will monitor all your edge and nano/air/etc devices. But UNMS and Unifi needs to come together at some point, or have the option to do so.
Unifi stuff is more stable than most home routers. And Linksys WRT routers are decades old and not up to the task of modern internet. I used to run DD-WRT on modern netgear/etc routers. But always ended switching back to the stock firmware because of poor wireless performance. The open source drivers just don't hold up with newer wireless features on AC and AX. It was fine back in the wireless G and N days, but never had good experience with dd-wrt on a AC unit.
I moved to unifi myself as it was cost effective and I wanted to have SSIDs attached to VLANS of my choice.
Great video. Will you add WiFi to your network?
craft computing: Im going to change the password form raspberry to well not raspberry
me: Opens SSH in putty and types in "not raspberry"
achievement unlocked- hardcore hacker
thank a lot for your helpfull guide, work very well!
please do a follow up video as well. I'm looking for similar thing for my new place.
Cant find Raspbian buster lite, would Debian Buster w/Raspberry Pi Desktop work?
video would be much better if you use your secondary camera on rasp pi while setting it up on the case
Thanks for the video, Do you have what modem-router or modem can be replaced with ATT modem-router. I'm using an ATT fiber-optic connection. Thanks in advance
I did this when the USG first came out. The only thing I didn't like about it was you couldn't update the software easy on the pi like you could on the cloud key at remote locations. I don't install USG anymore either had about five of them crash at first I thought it was a bad update had to factory default them and restore the backup. After that they were good for a few months then the same exact units did the same thing ripped those out and installed something different at the customers site. I must have just gotten a bad batch because I think I purchased those about all the same time. Don't know if anyone else has had this problem or not? I still loves their ap.