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Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

lazyadmin.nl

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Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#101
post #79
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An off the self Asus all in one home router actually has more features and capabilities. This is just not true at all. I agree unifi can be buggy at times, and their super clean interface means they need to hide stuff all over the place, but I havent found any network configuration I couldnt do on Unifi yet. Care to elaborate on exactly which functions standard asus routers have over Ubiquiti gear?

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...

yes, thos is quite rare thong. Could you describe the reason behind it?

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the system would cope with power outages I would agree. My viewports refuse to reconnect to the cameras and need multiple forgets/adoptions to come back to life. The (wired) cameras themselves take hours before they show up again, except for the (WiFi) doorbell. During this period I can see the all online via the managed ubiquiti switches.

Surely the expected solution for that is a UPS on the POE switch?

Ummm..... So the solution to cameras taking several hours to take back to life is to.... just to make sure the will never go offline?

The UPS remark is such an non sequitur. Sure, it's prudent to have one but this doesn't make the bug go away.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#103
post #2

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-hostin…

If only the system would cope with power outages I would agree. My viewports refuse to reconnect to the cameras and need multiple forgets/adoptions to come back to life. The (wired) cameras themselves take hours before they show up again, except for the (WiFi) doorbell. During this period I can see the all online via the managed ubiquiti switches.

Yea Ubiquiti is brutal after a power outage. I got a battery back up for my rack just to avoid post power outage down time.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#104
post #95
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because the elites have decided that privacy is only applicable to businesses.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the system would cope with power outages I would agree. My viewports refuse to reconnect to the cameras and need multiple forgets/adoptions to come back to life. The (wired) cameras themselves take hours before they show up again, except for the (WiFi) doorbell. During this period I can see the all online via the managed ubiquiti switches.

Surely the expected solution for that is a UPS on the POE switch?

A UPS is not a solution for all power outages, just ones short enough to last the UPS uptime. The brains of the system is supposed to be the Cloud Key anyway which has its own built in “UPS” and seems to shut down gracefully if you kill power.

The cameras and viewports should not be writing data at all after an initial configuration if designed properly and killing power should present no problems to any system with a read-only filesystem. As someone who designs systems like these it absolutely baffles me.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#106
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).

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#107
post #2

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-hostin…

There's one big gotcha with Unifi cameras, where you have to cloud-connect your Unifi system if you want "AI" detections[1] (anything other than simple motion detection). I'm hoping they fix it some day[2], but for now I just have motion detection on my Unifi hardware. If this is a problem for you, make sure you understand the tradeoffs here before you commit to a Unifi system. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/c…

https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/ai-key

Even this only reviews "Smart Detections" and I have smart detections turned off on my Unifi cameras, because it enables cloud AI. Having the ability to have an AI key to process detections locally would be great.

Also, having to buy extra hardware kinda stinks. Would love to be able to have a self hosted Unifi OS server that can do AI key abilities if the hardware supports it.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#108
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.

Constantly tweaking settings is not a use-case they have optimized for. Most of their customers are small IT shops that support small/medium sized businesses. They set up a network for a few doctors offices, law firms, etc. by clicking a few buttons in the controller's GUI once, and then remotely keep an eye on the networks with the controller software's remote management features.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this in 2023 and my experience has been the same. Had 0 problems other than Sonos being, well, Sonos. Recently set up CCTV at my parents’ with a Cloud Gateway Max, set up a site to site VPN in 3 clicks and now I can support remotely and their Sony smart TV can see my Jellyfin server.

IIRC some Sonos issues are related to STP. AFAIK it's, like you said, Sonos being Sonos. Lol.

Yeah, that was exactly it. Unifi have a special page in their docs for dealing with Sonos.

https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/18930473041047-Best-Pr...

I ended up connecting everything with a wired connection and disabling WiFi. Thankfully I have cat6 to every room so it wasn't an inconvenience.

It's worked perfectly since.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#110
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.

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