UniFi - migrating from self-hosted controller to cloud gateway

Networking & Firewalls
1

Hi,

we have a large (and old) network with an HP core switch, several HP access switches and a couple of UniFi switches connected to the core switch.

The firewall (actually connected to the core via one of the other switches because it doesn’t have an SFP port) is an old Forti which we want to replace.

We have more than a dozen UniFi APs managed from a self-hosted UniFi Network app installed on a Debian VM inside our network (it only has local users and is not connected to UniFi cloud). This also manages the 2 UniFi switches and have quite a few VLANs configured (both UniFi switches are layer-2 so all layer-3 switching is done in the core HP switch).

We run ISC-KEA DHCP server on another VM, ISC-BIND authoritative DNS with split-horizon on another VM and a couple of Unbound DNS resolvers on other VMs.

We intend to replace the old Forti with a UniFi EFG (still hoping they buy it for us). I already read that I cannot adopt it from my UniFi Network app. I wouldn’t like to have 2 management consoles so I would have to migrate everything to the EFG.

The question is: can I simply back-up the self hosted configuration (and maybe operational data) and while starting the EFG just restore it?

Would this actually work? Will it re-adopt the APs and switches? Will the VLANs still be configured in the ports and APs as before?

What about the users? We only use a couple of local users and no cloud users.

2

In general, no matter what type of controller is being moved from and to, exporting a backup from within the Network application and restoring it to another is robust and will carry over all your settings. One caveat - don’t do the restore during the initial setup of the EFG, complete the setup without restoring, then run updates to latest stable releases, and then restore the backup.

At this point you should have all your settings, including users, and the devices should be present but might be showing offline. At this point there are a few ways to move the devices over, just DO NOT reset them. Generally you can look at the “Network-Only Backup” section: https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008976393-Backups-and-Migration-in-UniFi

1 Like
3

Thanx a lot, @brwainer. Will follow your advice.