I’m happily running three U6-Lites at home, but I’m not happy with my UniFi Controller setup. In two months, I’ll have my HP Microserver g8 back where I can have persistent Linux running on my LAN, but until now I’m in an all Mac household. I installed the controller on my young son’s iMac, but the controller only runs when someone is logged in, which is less than ideal. Regardless, I’ve been able to get my APs running and updated when needed, though not monitored to my satisfaction.
I thought I finally had a better option by installing Multipass, where I can run Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS without the overhead of VMWare or Parallels. I successfully managed to install the 6.4.54 version of the controller, login and restore the latest backup from my son’s iMac instance. However, the new instance can’t see the APs, which I quickly discovered is because they’re on different networks.
My MBP is on 10.0.1.40, while my Ubuntu instance is on 192.168.64.5. I can ping between the networks, but the controller doesn’t recognize my 3 APs on 10.0.1.5 - .7. This feels like something I should be able to resolve within the controller, but I’m not sure. Can I sort this in the Advanced Gateway Settings or do I have to go into Linux?
Thanks much,
MB
I mean outside of the network issues you can run it on whatever you want if the installation is available lol
My mid 2015 MBP never actually goes to sleep so when I’ve hosted it on that I’ve never had an issue. It never leaves my desk, and is kinda janky in a way. The screen assembly is completely removed, and it’s mounted to the back of my desk. Works great for a “desktop” kinda thing.
Can you give us some more info as to how your network is configured? is it all Ubiquiti?
Alas, my laptop is a true laptop.
Quite simple network as of now consisting of pfSense, a few NetGear ProSafe switches and UniFi U6 WAPs. Not even VLANs due to NG’s janky implementation. I was using the UniFi Controller software to to register and upgrade firmware on the APs and for light monitoring. The APs just do DHCP pass-through. As I wrote, said controller was running on a kids’ iMac that regularly goes to sleep, which is decidedly subpar. Often when it wakes, the Controller has crashed.
I assume the problem I’m having has to do with my laptop and LAN being on 10.0.1.X and the Ubuntu Multipass instance, where the new controller is, being on 192.168.64.5. The new controller instance works and has all the data from the previous backup restore, but it doesn’t recognize the APs under devices and shows them all as being offline.
Probably should just bite the bullet and install it into a proper VM, but Multipass is so lightweight and easy, I’m going to bang my head against it for at least a bit longer as having the Controller up isn’t absolutely critical to my APs working.
I think you’ll need to create a bridged network with multipass on your LAN before it will be able to communicate with the APs. Multipass can only do this when running on a VirtualBox VM (see: Using VirtualBox in Multipass on macOS | Multipass documentation .) This will make your setup less lightweight, but maybe not too much.
Right you are, @spottybones. I suspected it had something to do with bridging, but I also got it in my head that using the VirtualBox network driver was only a Windows/Linux thing. Thank you for disabusing me of such a notion.
Also, welcome to the LTS Forums! You’re off to a banging start.
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