Create Remote UniFi SDN Controller

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hello!

I have had a UniFi UAP-AC-PRO for some years now. It has been a great device. It was coupled with multiple $100 garbage routers that seem to fail after a year. I just bought a UDM-Pro and love it.

Family member has a farm and needs internet access from house to office in riding arena. Budget is tight. Bought two UAP-AC-M-PRO-US (mesh). Was going to set up her macbook as controller, and it shut off after a few minutes. Apple said it was not fixable (Luis Rossman… I need you). She bought a new macbook. I return, and macbook has no F@#$%^& ethernet port! This is why I switched to linux. Anyways, I took the hardware home as I travel constantly between 3 states and work at 13hrs at night. I am tired.

I love the Lawrence Systems videos. Thank you. It has been many years since the CCNA days and converting token ring to ethernet. I remember nothing.

I started a gist on how to Create Remote UniFi SDN Controller. I think this might be a good solution to setting up remote wifi networks. Any tips or additions along the way would be appreciated!

Server is up and running. Next task will be seeing if I can create a new site and provision these mesh units from my udm-pro. Then bring them off site and cross fingers they work without a hitch.

2

If you are thinking about doing this as a business then check out https://hostifi.net/ as they have this down already and no need to re-invent the wheel.

If it’s just for you / friends / family then go for it, not really anything you need to do but two options;

  • make sure you keep it up to date (maybe not v6 of unifi yet though!)
  • consider firewall rules to only allow incoming from known sites (if they have static IP’s).
    Updates obviously for security. FW rules to further limit who can access the server remotely and prevent people from getting to the web interface or from DOSing the server with adoption requests.
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I did check out hostifi. Their cheapest plan is $50/month for 500 devices. There is no lower entry. Linodes cheapest plan is $5/month.

Linodes server is fully functional and I successfully adopted devices.

Any insight into setting up a firewall?

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At which point if you are doing it privately for friends then $5 is probably a better plan. If you are doing it commercially then you need to think about what your time is worth. For $45 hostifi essentially take care of all the maintenance for you. I’m being slightly hypocritical here because I run my own server for my business customers but I am going to be moving to Hostifi when I can find a window to migrate everyone.

Can’t help with firewalls on Linode I’m afraid, never used it however… you probably want to “allow all” from your home / office IP then below that add a “deny all”, then in-between for each site that needs to connect add an “allow ports x, y, z from IP-A”. The firewall should then let you in to anything all of the time but, allow customer sites access to the ports they need (check other posts for ports for Unifi) but block everyone else.

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