Need help creating seperate network for different subnet with Unifi

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hello,
So, I have inherited a Unifi Wifi controller (Version 5.12.35) that is locally installed on a laptop (this will change) for our business. I have used it with success adding additional Access Points (APs) on our pre-existing subnet with relative ease. My challenge is to set up a Unifi AP-AC Lite for another branch. Our corporate network is on the 192.168.1.X subnet and the distant branch is on the 192.168.12.X subnet. Our different subnets are accessible via our vendor hosted network and I am able to ping the 192.168.12.1 router at the remote location.

So this is what I set up with the intention of being able to ship the AP to the remote branch and have them plug it in and everything would just work.

  1. I set up a separate network with the 192.168.12.1/24 all the settings mirroring my primary corporate network except for the assignment of the VLAN 12 identifier and the subnet changed to reflect the branch subnet of .12 (I wasn’t sure if I actually needed to set up a separate network or not)
  2. I set a Wireless network for the branch, set the Security and password and assigned it to VLAN 12.
  3. Initially, the controller adopted the AP with no issues and the AP was naturally pulling an IP address from the corporate network and I was able to connect to it from another laptop and access the internet.
  4. On the controller through the devices menu I assigned the AP to VLAN 12 and set a static IP address of 192.168.12.42 with the gateway set as 192.168.12.1.
  5. At this point the controller lists the device status as “adoption failed”. I am still able to connect to the AP but cannot pull an IP address.

I am relatively new with this as you might can tell. I am sure that I have missed something obvious and from what I understand from all the forums and videos I have watched so far Ubiquiti products are rather easy to work with. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  • Do you have any existing unifi gear at the remote office?
  • Do you need the vlan to be tagged on the AP or could you just connect it to an untagged switch port.
  • Can you ping the unifi controller from the remote site?

It sounds like you might be over complicating it. If you adopt the AP on your network, ship it to the remote site and have it connected to to an untagged 12 port it will get dhcp and reach out to the controller, the routing should then kick in and connect it to the controller and it will be happy.

If you need a separate SSID / PSK you could set it up as a separate group maybe or manually limit the SSID’s that are broadcast on the AP it’s self.

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For internal controllers you can use the IP address of the UniFi controller to be the adoption URL. So when deploying the AP on the same network and adopting it that URL will be set as the call back for that AP. Then once it is moved to the other location it will call back to that same IP and just work.

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Thanks for both of the quick and helpful replies guys. I guess I was making it more complicated than it needed to be. I was worried about making sure it would work when it arrived onsite, but also be able to manage it via the controller. I haven’t experimented with the “cloud” aspect of this yet and plan to in the near future so maybe that will help in the management process as well. Again thanks for the advice!

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