Ubiquiti

Ubiquiti Unifi is scalable and has a linux controller software, meaning you only need to buy APs and a PC with linux on it (ubuntu recommended) to run the network.

Unifi UAP

The UAP-Pro can handle 200 concurrent clients and the UAP-LR / LR / UAP-Outdoor can handle 100 simultaneous clients.

The UAP's are very cheap.

There are still some problems apparently though.

Installing the controller on Debian

This needs to run under a desktop environment, so make sure you have one.

echo 'deb http://www.ubnt.com/downloads/unifi/debian stable ubiquiti' | /etc/apt/sources.list.d/100-ubnt-unifi.list
wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/unifi-repo.gpg https://dl.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-repo.gpg
apt update 
sudo apt install unifi

Then

systemctl enable unifi
systemctl start unifi

visit the controller software at http://localhost:8080

[1]

You may need to change the ports

[2]

Migrating from another controller on another PC

If you are not changing hostname / IP

1. Make sure both controllers are the same version (ie update them both)
2. if necessary upgrade the firmware on the controllers
3. make a backup to an .unf file of the old controller
4. Visit the new controller (using the applet or the website) and restore from a previous backup

If you ARE changing hostname / IP

1. Make sure both controllers are the same version (ie update them both)
2. if necessary upgrade the firmware on the controllers
3. make a backup to an .unf file of the old controller
4. Visit the new controller (using the applet or the website) and restore from a previous backup
5. On the old controller

When I move the controller, I just go into the GUI on existing controller, under SETTINGS, CONTROLLER, and change the Controller Hostname / IP to the NEW IP ADDRESS, (removing unifi.yourdomain.com) and then check the box "Override inform host with controller hostname/IP" 

Since I have the migrated controller up and running already on the NEW IP ADDRESS, after I shut down the OLD CONTROLER, the new one immediately starts provisioning the WAPS.

Press apply changes on the bottom. You should see the new controller status of the APs changing to connected.

[3]

An alternative method is to SSH to each AP and use set-inform to point them to the new controller

set-inform http://IP.ADDR.OF.Controller:8080/inform

set-inform, adopt, set-inform a second time.

If you forget the syntax, 'help' will help

files

/var/lib/unifi/data/system.properties

if this doesn't exist

java -jar /usr/lib/unifi/lib/ace.jar discover

/usr/lib/unifi/logs/server.log

/usr/lib/unifi/logs/mongod.log

migrating controller from one machine to another

[4]

EdgeMAX EdgeRouter

The UI is slightly confusing as there are buttons on the top, bottom, middle and at the bottom. Also, logging only starts once you log in, so the dashboard and traffic analysis only start once you are logged on.

Basic system configuration

After running the wizard, basic system configuration can be done by clicking the System button on bottom left. This is where you can backup and reboot but also add extra DNS servers to the system.

Config Tree

The config tree allows you to click on the triangles to expand AND view what is in the config (meaning you have to double click on the triangle quite a bit), hover over the name of the config for some more information and the + or - to install or uninstall a service. If you are going to uninstall a service it will show in red.

CLI configuration

When you enter the cli you can run some commands but not change setups. In order to change stuff you need to first enter configuration mode, change your settings, then commit and save

  configure
  set ...
  commit
  save

DHCP

EdgeRouter - DHCP Server Using Dnsmasq

Services (top) -> DHCP Server

Once you have added a DHCP server you can configure it by clicking on Actions on the right of the screen and then View Details.

There are also options under Service -> dhcp-server in the config tree

Adding a third DNS server to DHCP can also be done by cli Edgemax 3 DNS Entries for DHCP Server

ubnt@ubnt:~$ configure
ubnt@ubnt# show service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN1 subnet 192.168.40.0/24 dns-server
 dns-server 192.168.40.1
ubnt@ubnt# set service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN1 subnet 192.168.40.0/24 dns-server 8.8.8.8
ubnt@ubnt# set service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN1 subnet 192.168.40.0/24 dns-server 8.8.4.4
ubnt@ubnt# set service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN1 subnet 192.168.40.0/24 dns-server 208.67.220.220
ubnt@ubnt# commit
[ service dhcp-server ]
Stopping DHCP server daemon...
Starting DHCP server daemon...

[edit]
ubnt@ubnt# show service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN1 subnet 192.168.40.0/24 dns-server
 dns-server 192.168.40.1
 dns-server 8.8.8.8
 dns-server 8.8.4.4
 dns-server 208.67.220.220
[edit]

ubnt@ubnt# save

One of the problems you will run into is that even if you set multiple DNS servers, Windows will only read the first one unless it is actually down (see also What is the default behavior of a Windows 7 or Windows 8 DNS client when two DNS servers are configured on the NIC and Best practices for DNS client settings in Windows 2000 Server and in Windows Server 2003. So if you want to resolve internal domain names you will need to work on DNS forwarding.

DNS

Resolving

To see what nameservers are being used to resolve

  cat /etc/resolv.conf

if you don't want that, use

  set interfaces ethernet eth0 dhcp-options name-server no-update

Forwarding

EdgeRouter - DNS Forwarding Setup and Options man page

If you set your DHCP server to put the IP of the EdgeMAX router into the DNS servers section, it uses DNS forwarding using dnsmasq

  show dns forwarding

This example shows the DNS servers assigned to the router via DHCP first and the one configured in the basic system configuration (bottom of the UI screen) after that

The DNS resolution of this system is that the system chooses the fastest server and sticks to that.

One of the options to NOT enable is strict-order DNS Forwarding / Name servers / Dnsmasq-discuss DNS search Order

Using the all-servers option sends the request in parallel to every server and it picks the result that comes first. This can be done via the cli

  configure
  set service dns forwarding options all-servers
  commit
  save

Or using the Config Tree

You can see how many queries each has using

  show dns forwarding statistics

To clear the cache use

  clear dns forwarding cache

To clear the cache and the counters use

  clear dns forwarding all