UniFi Controller

Ubiquiti UniFi is a line of networking equipment including Wi-Fi access points and switches. Most of these devices need a “UniFi Controller” to allow the device to be configured and managed. A LXC container in AstLinux offers a good method to act as a local UniFi Controller for Wi-Fi access points and switches.

Typical Resource Usage:

• Memory: 1 GB (minimum)
• Storage: 1.3 GB (minimum)

Note -> At the time of this writing (June 2020), the UniFi Controller software is best matched with a Debian 9 distribution. The example below is based on a Debian 9 container.

Tip -> Alternatively, community supported UniFi Installation Scripts may be used for various Ubuntu / Debian distributions.

First, it is assumed the lxcbr0 interface is setup per the Quick Start Guide → Enable LXC Support.

Then from the CLI:

lxc-create -t download -n unifi -- -d debian -r stretch -a amd64 --no-validate

service lxc restart

lxc-attach unifi
  apt update
  apt install curl apt-transport-https openjdk-8-jre-headless
  
  echo 'deb https://www.ui.com/downloads/unifi/debian stable ubiquiti' | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/100-ubnt-unifi.list
  curl -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/unifi-repo.gpg https://dl.ui.com/unifi/unifi-repo.gpg
  
  apt update
  apt install unifi

Following installation, via a web browser HTTPS on port 8443, access the web interface within the container and begin setup.

Tip -> If you prefer not to create a unifi.ui.com account, you may establish a local-only UniFi instance by clicking on “Switch to Advanced Setup” during “Sign in …” in setup.

The UniFi Controller can use a noticeable amount of CPU and RAM resources, depending on the number and type of device. For a small installation you can edit the /var/lib/lxc/unifi/config file and uncomment the following line:

lxc.cgroup.memory.limit_in_bytes = 1024M

to keep the RAM usage from going over 1 GB. Larger installations may require 1536M or 2048M for good performance.

Related Info -> LXC container in AstLinux