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Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

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Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#92
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?

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#93
post #87
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My general impression is that it “Just Works” if you don’t do anything remotely interesting with it. Want to create a VLAN with no Internet connectivity? Better test that it actually has no Internet connectivity because the setting doesn’t actually work. Want to use the firewall? Better test all the rules — it’s amazingly buggy. Want to change a WiFi setting without WiFi going down for a minute or two? Good luck — Un…

Just to reiterate for those that missed it: If you change the schedule of a WiFi network your entire network (wired and everything) goes down for two minutes. Just a simple admin policy change… full network outage. Clown. College.

Eh, in my experience, if you disable the uplink monitor features aggressively enough (which is in a different place in different firmwares and currently seems to also require disabling all wireless uplink/“mesh” capability), then sometime more of the network will stay up. Maybe even the gateway will keep working too if you don’t touch any gateway settings. Of course, if the gateway does decide to reboot, you’re down for many minutes.

It’s real classy.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#95
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having seen a few slippery slope situations like this over the years with IoT and other services, I'm simply not willing to make any concessions in that direction. I use a UDM Pro and turning on cloud access requires associating that hardware with a Unify cloud account. That's already undesirable if you want to safeguard privacy.

Fair enough, the Unifi brand is a consumer/prosumer brand after all. I guess if you have strict privacy requirements then you would be looking more at enterprise gear anyway.

Why does strict privacy requirements imply enterprise gear?

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#96
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VLAN with an id of 0 isn't possible on the new interface last I checked. Which, granted is a weird thing to do, but...

There are off-the-shelf all-in-one Asus home routers that do VLANs?

Many Asus home routers advertise compatibility with and/or run OpenWRT internally, so yes to a certain reading.

Here's a random example I found:

https://www.asus.com/networking-iot-servers/modem-routers/al... | https://web.archive.org/web/20250704161852/https://www.asus....

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#97
post #51
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a virtual appliance or system image a la Home Assistant OS would seem like a better fit...

That would make it impossible to deploy it next to other services on an existing machine... why would you want less flexibility?

When did it become impossible to run a VM next to other services on an existing machine? As they said, Home Assistant OS works great with that setup and it's rock solid in my experience.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#99
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My general impression is that it “Just Works” if you don’t do anything remotely interesting with it. Want to create a VLAN with no Internet connectivity? Better test that it actually has no Internet connectivity because the setting doesn’t actually work. Want to use the firewall? Better test all the rules — it’s amazingly buggy. Want to change a WiFi setting without WiFi going down for a minute or two? Good luck — Un…

Most people don't want to do anything 'interesting'. If you stray too far from the beaten path, I'd argue that you no longer need or something that "Just Works". You need something very configurable, which, by definition, will let you shoot yourself in the foot. My current setup is Mikrotik for wired and Ubiquity APs for wifi. Their wifi devices have great specs and are difficult to beat. Mikrotik has decent wifi dev…

But unifi is trying to position at the prosumer segment.

And we have things like indeed no WiFi (all networks down) if you dare to change WiFi settings, or mdns having a hard limit of five networks because the underlying Perl script is 10 or 15 years old.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#100
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a guy on dslreports selling certificates for $10 each, and you could just load it up into one of the cheap sfp modules off of aliexpress. Plug it straight into the router of your choice. No reason to use their junk. I've done the same with a different provider.

This is interesting--do you have a link to the sale or instructions as to how that was working?

http://dslreports.com/

You'd have to poke around in the forums. I'm not sure what the best keywords to search with would be. The gist of it is only AT&T ONTs can connect, because it's using certificate fuckery, but there was a guy buying those up for $1 or $5 or something on ebay, jtag-ing the certs off of those, and selling them for $10 each. There were instructions for how to program the sfp module to use those, and when I got mine those modules were only about $50 each (no idea what they're now with the tariff nonsense). You'd need a router that can accept those, I've got a Mikrotik. I think Ubiquiti has a prosumer router with one too that's not too crazy.

At the time (3 years ago-ish), no one had figured out a way to do it with AT&T 5gig service. But for that you'd need something with SFP+ slots, and those are seriously pricey.

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