Upgrade selfhosted UniFi Network app to UniFi OS?

Networking & Firewalls
1

I have an existing small homelab setup with the following equipment:

  • 1X pfSense firewall (pfSense CE)

  • 1X US-24-250W

  • 1X UniFi AP-AC-LR

  • 2X UniFi-AP-AC-Pro

  • Several servers running XCP-NG 8.3

I am currently running UniFi Network 7.2.97 (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it) on a VM to manage my Ubiquity devices.

My question is, is there anything to gain by upgrading UniFi Network to a recent release, or possibly replacing that with a VM running UniFi OS, which I am aware includes a UniFi OS specific version of UniFi Network?

I am also in the middle of changing my Shorewall-based firewall over from a selfhosted linux VM to a dedicated box running pfSense, so my firewall replacement is not yet finished.

Any advice anyone may have is much appreciated.

2

Oh boy - you need to upgrade in small steps if you want to do that.

If you do not have any crazy configs / many VLAN’s it might be faster to just make screenshots of settings. And just forget the devices in the current controller and adopt them in the new one.

Otherwise you need to upgrade to 8.x 9.x 10.x etc.

1 Like
3

I appreciate your reply, Kavaa, thank you!

Actually, upgrades haven’t been difficult or particularly time consuming:

  1. backup existing UniFi directory
  2. install new version of Network App
  3. restore UniFi/data/ from the backup
  4. start the newly installed version

I have experienced very few problems to this point. Before updating I take time to peruse the feedback for each new version before installing, then I read release notes to verify that any updated dependencies are fulfilled. To date - knock on wood - that has worked for me.

I am interested to hear from others what enhancements from recent versions of the Network App that they have found to be the most worthwhile.