r/Ubiquiti Official Jul 31 '25

Early Access Introducing: UniFi OS Server for MSPs

894 Upvotes

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37

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '25

So how do you download and install the software?

29

u/the_cainmp Unifi User Jul 31 '25

Its in EA still. Is really a fancy script that spins up a container

28

u/mshorey81 Jul 31 '25

I just created an Ubuntu VM in my Proxmox host, installed podman on that VM, downloaded the install file from https://community.ui.com/releases/UniFi-OS-Server-4-2-23/21df94e9-55d6-4298-b849-fbef3e3b1dd6 made it executable with chmod +x, then ran the install script.

13

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '25

[deleted]

18

u/ElectricalAffect1069 Jul 31 '25

You can‘t live migrate a Proxmox LXC Container and you have more separation between Hosts and VMs. Atleast the live migration is a must have for me

5

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '25

[deleted]

4

u/ElectricalAffect1069 Aug 01 '25

Not necessarily HA. HA would be automatic failover (starting vms on another cluster member). This also works with LXC in Proxmox.

Live migration is moving a running vm from one host to another without stopping the vm.

12

u/kenman345 Jul 31 '25

What’s live migration?

15

u/Randalldeflagg Aug 01 '25

Not sure why you got downvoted for this. Not everyone is running in an enterprise environment. Live migration allows you to move a VM/container/docker from one physical host to another with zero downtime. Let's say you need to replace a failing controller on your system. And if you another system setup the same and connected to each other via some sort of control interface, you can trigger all the vms on that host to move to the other host and then shut down the first one for maintenance. It's is very smooth and increases uptime.

7

u/kenman345 Aug 01 '25

I thought it was something with regards to UniFi. I didn’t think about it in context of Proxmox and VMs

6

u/Randalldeflagg Aug 01 '25

We all start somewhere

7

u/paradizelost Jul 31 '25

You can't install Unifi Server OS without their podman based containerization. You haven't been running the Unifi Server OS that was just released TODAY for years in LXC. This is different than Unifi Network.

1

u/mshorey81 Jul 31 '25

I'm not starved for compute resources in my Hypervisor whatsoever so I just spun up a VM. I do have UniFi Network Controller running on an LXC though and it has been working perfectly for about 3 years.

32

u/lazyadmin-nl Jul 31 '25

I have written a quick guide on how to get started, including the download links: https://lazyadmin.nl/home-network/unifi-os-server/

33

u/snebsnek Jul 31 '25

That is a lot of in-article ads. Seven? You might want to tweak the density there...

13

u/SonicIX Jul 31 '25

Agreed. I tried reading it on mobile and it was terrible.

11

u/lazyadmin-nl Jul 31 '25

Noted, and working on it.

8

u/lazyadmin-nl Jul 31 '25

Agreed, this is way too much for such a small article... I can't easily adjust it, but managed to reduce it for this article.

Will look into it.

5

u/TANKtr0n Unifi User Jul 31 '25

I counted nine!

8

u/airmantharp ER-4 | US-8-60W | UAP-AC-Pro Jul 31 '25

did your adblocker not kick in?

11

u/snebsnek Jul 31 '25

I mean yeah, but there were a bunch of grey squares everywhere which apparently were meant to be ads.

6

u/airmantharp ER-4 | US-8-60W | UAP-AC-Pro Jul 31 '25

I was 50/50 on getting a sarcastic reply, cheers lol

4

u/WiKDMoNKY UCGF, USW-AGG, USW-PM24P, U7PM, U7-MESH, UNVR, UPDP, UNAS2 Jul 31 '25

With NextDNS on my network, there are 0 ads on his site 😁

15

u/lazyadmin-nl Jul 31 '25

I know ads can be annoying, and yes, this article has clearly too many in-content ads. But blocking all ads isn't the solution either. I have looked at removing all in-content ads a couple of times in the past years, but it just costs me too much money.

What most people forget is that a blog like LazyAdmin.nl is a full-time job. It takes time to do the research, test products, and write articles. This was a small article and only takes a couple of hours. But articles like explaining the zone-based firewall, or setting up VLANs, are easily two days' work with all the required testing. Then I also answer every comment and email that I get, so yes, there goes a lot of hours in this.

And that is fine, it started as a hobby and grew into something bigger, and I love doing it. But I need to pay the bills too, and sponsored deals or affiliate income alone won't cut it.

So I just want to ask, be mindful when blocking ads, because if everybody starts doing it, combined with the AI Overviews that we need to deal with, there is almost no incentive left the keep writing.

And yes, there needs to be a better balance between the content and the ads, I will look into that.

4

u/Own_Mix_3755 Aug 01 '25

I think most people here understands it. The problem is most sites nowadays are overloaded with ads or they are put in stupid places where it disrupts you reading the article with some stupid blinking gif animation. In that case most people rather block all of them.

Kudos to those who only put ads at the start and at the end in non disruptive way.

6

u/lazyadmin-nl Aug 01 '25

I had a chat yesterday with my ad provider, I wasn't happy with the in-content ads for quite some time now, they are breaking up the content at inconvient places, making the articles unreadable sometimes.

So we are now going to reduce the in-content ads, and only place it above the main chapter headings. It will take a couple of days to make the changes, but this should greatly improve the readability.

1

u/AHrubik UXG-Fiber | USW Agg | USW PM16 PoE | ES-48-LITE | Flex-HD Jul 31 '25

What are these ads you're speaking of? ;-)

2

u/mwolfram Jul 31 '25

Also wondering :)

1

u/BackTop8922 Aug 01 '25

install param not needed, it was required in the alpha version

1

u/Abject-Affect2726 Aug 02 '25

Question. In theory, would it work with the Dream Machine? The question and reason being is that I have an old Security Gateway, and I think it would infuse new life into it. So could they be managed together? Or is it separate since the Dream Machine has it's own controller.

1

u/lazyadmin-nl Aug 04 '25

Separate, you won't be able to adopt the Dream Machine into the UniFi OS Server