Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#111

Post by amluto » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 8:34 PM UTC

krupan wrote: post #108

rsync wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you set the thing to automatically optimize WiFi (the default!) it goes completely down for several minutes every day.

I would not want to have to carefully optimize settings to get that third nine of uptime for a small business.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#112

Post by seany » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 8:37 PM UTC

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #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 conn…

That market is pretty small I think, and it's split with the people that jump right to used enterprise aps for their radios (I'm using 3 rukus 850s for instance)

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#113

Post by bc569a80a344f9c » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 8:40 PM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #82

petepete wrote: post #52

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.

How could a Sonos device possibly interact with spanning tree? Are there Sonos devices that act as bridges?

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#114

Post by cyberpunk » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 8:44 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #22

bobbob1921 wrote: post #13

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 fo…

The UDM pro has the controller built in. Others have mentioned the Cloud Key, of which there are two versions. The controller software runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. I used to run it in docker on Linux. For years. Quite easy to manage.

I run it on FreeBSD arm64 very successfully also.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#115

Post by atomicnumber3 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 8:48 PM UTC

random3 wrote: post #94

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?

I've been a unifi user for quite a few years, enthusiastically at first and with somewhat more trepidation as of late. They seemed to have some kind of hardware talent exodus a couple years ago, and also when they stopped having self-hostable unifi video and network. I ended up capitulating and just bought a cloud-key but wasn't thrilled.

But yes, they still seem to be the best for small business / homelab type people who want something more than "the AT&T guy put a box behind the couch in 1998 and i don't know where it went after that" but also doesn't want to have to do opnsense or a bunch of that stuff.

And they've managed to regain my enthusiasm a bit by adding plain-ole wireguard (not even teleport, though i do like teleport for my phone) to their managed VPN options, and now by bringing back self-hosting.

My main gripe about lack of self-hosting is, I have a bunch of terabytes just sitting around i could put my video footage of my front lawn on, and it's free real estate. but since i can't (couldn't) self-host video on it, I would've had to pay like hundreds of bucks (or is it thousands?) to get the rackmount video server from them. But now that this is back, hopefully I can switch back to self hosting if my cloudkey ever dies. So that's nice.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#116

Post by kingnothing » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 8:48 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #46

carimura wrote: 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…

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…

I took a hybrid approach -- Unifi for everything except the firewall, and a Firewalla for that. I'm overall quite happy with it, although you won't get a single pane of glass for management.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#117

Post by atomicnumber3 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 8:50 PM UTC

lapetitejort wrote: post #55

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…

I use ATT Fiber and using the pass-through mode has worked pretty well for me. The main problem is their box is still a piece of shit that they introduce bugs/regressions into sometimes. But that'll affect their own service as well, regardless of whether you use your own device w/ passthrough. So you might as well hook your stuff up.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#118

Post by nottorp » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 9:00 PM UTC

> 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?

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#119

Post by readmodifywrite » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 9:02 PM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #40

covercash wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Ubiquiti pushes out buggy software as production-ready and that we're all their beta testers is a pretty common meme on their subreddit.

I hear this talked about in the past but is it still true today? I've at least never experienced it (and I stick to the Stable/Release channel). I have 4 AP, 9 cameras, NVR and Dream Machine - I guess I got lucky over the 2.5 years I've had Unifi.

Having used Unifi for 10+ years, they really have improved their firmware/software by quite a lot.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#120

Post by e40 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 9:06 PM UTC

p_ing wrote: post #54

e40 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily turn off automatic updates. I check the forum before I update. Haven’t had any issues for 10+ years.

You're correct, but the running gag is that every version released as production is a beta. It's been awhile since I used Unifi, but regardless of the label they put on their binaries, things felt like beta. That doesn't mean I had issues per se, or things I couldn't work around. But it may be missing things, almost certainly missing promised features, rough around the edges, etc.

Yeah, I'm not super happy with their release process. That's why I look at the forums before I update. And I don't update very often, probably 1-2 a year.

A neighbor has a bunch of Unifi devices and he just has his on autoupdate and never has issues. I definitely am scared to give them that much control.