Sep 13, 2019
Previously posted notes from installing a Unifi AP and EdgeMax router.
I originally ran the unifi controller locally from my laptop. This is easiest to get up and running. Eventually I wanted to clear space on my laptop – the unifi controller writes to a local mongodb instance and that shit was getting huge! – so I moved the controller to a remote server.
I like Linode a lot. I decided to use a
nanonode to run this controller. There’s a debian package for the
unifi controller so we can use apt to download and install.
I followed most of the steps in this script with cross-referencing on the Unifi official help.
this was considerably easier to do because I had several things setup, but there were a few steps along the way that I had to stop and figure out.
what is the access point IP address?
this wasn’t obvious to me at first how to obtain. I wanted to ssh onto the AP
in order to “inform” the access point the IP address of its controller, which
was now the location of my linode.
I got the access point IP address by logging into the EdgeMax router and finding the AP listed:
.
In hindsight of course this makes sense. The router knows IP addresses of every device on the LAN.
how to remove the AP from the wall bracket
This wasn’t trivial! I had to remove the AP in order to physically reset it. Why was it necessary to physically reset? I couldn’t successfully ssh into the AP because I lost the ssh password. :-(
I remembered from installing the AP that the wall mount had a click/lock mechanism. But I had to jam a zip tie into the unlock it and twist much harder than I expected. Was certain I was gonna break it. The docs recommend a zip tie, too.
After associating the AP to the remote controller running on linode I got this error This was suprising. Why is there a STUN server running and why is it breaking my ability to install firmware?!
the answer?
ufw again – had to allow UDP on port 3478.
The controller expects ports 8443, 8080, and 3478 open.