Installing the UniFi Controller on Ubuntu

by Emmet

Updated Dec 27, 2023

This tutorial will show you how to install the Unifi controller to the Ubuntu operating system.

Ubiquiti offers an affordable lineup of robust mesh wireless access points, switches, cameras, and plenty more. Of all the products Ubiquiti offers, their network devices are one of the most popular.

To control all of the network devices and maintain an effective mesh network, they need something to control them. The software that manages all of this is called the UniFi network controller.

One of the best things about Ubiquiti is that they don’t force you to use their hardware to run the controller. Instead, you can install the UniFi network controller to any supported operating system such as Ubuntu.

Please note that you will run the following steps within the Ubuntu terminal. If you run a desktop flavor of Ubuntu, you can open the terminal quickly by pressing CTRL + ALT + T on your keyboard.

Installing the UniFi Controller on Ubuntu

This section will walk you through preparing your Ubuntu system to install the UniFi controller.

Over the next few steps, we will install the required software and add the official UniFi repository.

1. Before we get started, we will need to update the package list of the Ubuntu system.

The package list is a cache of all packages we can install and where apt can download them.

sudo apt update

2. Our first task is to install some packages we will rely on to add the package repositories we require as well as run the UniFi network controller.

Use the following command to install the “wget“, “gpg“, “openjdk-8-jre-headless“, and “havegd” packages to Ubuntu.

sudo apt install curl haveged gpg openjdk-8-jre-headless

curl – We will be using curl to download the GPG keys for both MongoDB and the UniFi controller to Ubuntu.
haveged – This package allows us to generate extra entropy that the UniFi controller needs during startup to help guarantee security.
gpg – We need to ensure this package is installed as we will need to “dearmor” the MongoDB GPG key before we save it to our system.
openjdk-8-jre-headless – As the UniFi controller is built upon Java we will need to install the java runtime environment. At the time of publishing UniFi still relies on Java 8.

Adding the UniFi Repository to Ubuntu

3. Our first step is to download the UniFi GPG key to our system. This key helps tell the package manager that the packages are valid and have been signed by the repository.

Download this key to your system using the following command within the terminal.

curl https://dl.ui.com/unifi/unifi-repo.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/ubiquiti-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null

4. With the UniFi GPG key saved to our Ubuntu device, we can now add the repository to our sources list.

Adding UniFi to the “apt” sources list is as straightforward as using the following command.

echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ubiquiti-archive-keyring.gpg] https://www.ui.com/downloads/unifi/debian stable ubiquiti' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/100-ubnt-unifi.list > /dev/null

Installing Libssl1.1

5. As the version of MongoDB we need to run the Unifi controller relies on an older version of LibSSL, we will need to install this package manually.

Luckily, LibSSL1.1 is still available through the Ubuntu archive and can be downloaded using the following command.

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl1.1_1.1.1f-1ubuntu2_amd64.deb -O libssl1.1.deb

6. With the LibSSL1.1 package downloaded to your Ubuntu device, you can install it by running the following command.

sudo dpkg -i libssl1.1.deb

Adding the MongoDB Repository

7. With the UniFi repository added to our Ubuntu system, we can move on to adding the one for MongoDB 4.4.

Before adding the MongoDB repository, our first step is to download its GPG key using the command below.

curl https://pgp.mongodb.com/server-4.4.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-org-server-4.4-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null

8. Once the GPG key has been added, our next step is to add the MongoDB 4.4 repository to our Ubuntu device.

As the UniFi controller relies on an older version of MongoDB, we can’t just rely on a version provided through the Ubuntu repository.

Use the command below in your terminal to add the MongoDB 4.4 repository to the sources list on your system.

echo 'deb [arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-org-server-4.4-archive-keyring.gpg] https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu focal/mongodb-org/4.4 multiverse' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-4.4.list > /dev/null

Installing MongoDB 3.6 to Ubuntu

9. As we changed our sources list, we will need to perform a package list update.

If we don’t perform an update, the apt package manager won’t be aware of any of our newly added repositories.

sudo apt update

10. We can now install the final piece of software we require to install and run the UniFi controller on Ubuntu.

This final piece of software is called “MongoDB” and is the database server that UniFi requires.

You can install the MongoDB server to Ubuntu by running the command below in the terminal.

sudo apt install -y mongodb-org-server

11. After installing MongoDB, we want to ensure that its service is enabled to start at boot.

Run the command below to ensure that the MongoDB server is set to start at boot.

sudo systemctl enable mongod

12. Finally, we can ensure that the MongoDB server is running by using the following command in the terminal.

This command will start up MongoDB on your Ubuntu device immediately.

sudo systemctl start mongod

Installing the UniFi Network Controller

13. Finally, now that everything is in place, we can install the UniFi controller to Ubuntu by using the following command.

With this command, the apt package manager will download UniFi from the official repository that we added in an earlier step.

sudo apt install unifi

14. At this point, you will finally have the UniFi controller up and running on your Ubuntu device.

Over the next section we will show you how to access this interface and go through the initial setup steps.

Using the UniFi Controller Web Interface

Within this section, we will be showing you how to access your freshly installed UniFi controller’s web interface.

The following steps should work fine in whatever web browser you choose to utilize.

Accessing the Ubuntu UniFi Controller

1. Before we continue, you will need to know the IP address of your Ubuntu device.

One of the easiest ways to get the IP address assigned to the device is to utilize the hostname command as shown below.

hostname -I

2. With the IP address in hand, you will want to go to the following address in your favorite web browser.

Make sure that you replace “IPADDRESS” with the IP of your device. From this, you can see that the UniFi controller will operate its web interface on port 8443.

https://IPADDRESS:8443

First Run of the UniFi Controller

3. After heading to the UniFi controller for the first time, you will be greeted by the following screen.

For these first steps, you must assign your Ubuntu UniFi controller a name (1.).

Next, to utilize this controller, you will be required to agree to the Ubiquiti end-user license agreement and their terms of service.

Once you have read through both documents and agree to them, click the checkbox (2.)

Finally, to proceed with the setup steps, you will need to click the “Next” button (3.).

Setting the UniFi Network Controller Name on Ubuntu

4. To proceed further you will need to log in to your Ubiquiti account (1.).

If you don’t have an account, you must register for one by going to the official Ubiquiti website.

With your login details entered, click the “Next” button (2.).

5. You will be asked if you want to configure any basic options for your UniFi Network controller on Ubuntu.

The only option available to us during setup was the “Enable Auto Backup” option (1.).

When you are happy with your chosen options, click the “Next” button to proceed (2.).

6. At this point, if you have any Ubiquiti network devices awaiting adoption (1.), you will get the chance to adopt them to your network controller.

Once you are ready, you can proceed through the setup process by clicking the “Next” button (2.).

7. You can now configure the Wi-Fi network that the UniFi network controller will create on any of your attached network devices.

At this point, you can enter an SSID and password for your network (1.). However, it is possible to skip this process.

In the bottom-right of the page, you will see both the “Skip” and “Next” options (2.). Click the appropiate option to proceed.

8. Before the setup process is complete, you will get a chance to review all of the options you just configured (1.).

Additionally, you can also set the country/territory and timezone (2.) for the UniFi network controller to utilize on your Ubuntu system.

If you are happy with everything, you can click the “Finish” button (3.) to complete the setup.

Review UniFi Network Controller Settings

9. You should now have the UniFi network controller successfully installed on your Ubuntu system.

If you haven’t yet adopted any network devices, you will end up with a screen similar to the one shown below.

Conclusion

Throughout this tutorial, we have shown you how you can install and run the UniFi network controller on Ubuntu.

The UniFi controller allows you to easily control all of your Ubiquiti network devices from one central interface.

Please comment below if you have questions about running the UniFi controller on Ubuntu.

Be sure to check out our many other Ubuntu tutorials. Alternatively, we have plenty of general Linux guides that are well worth a read.

16 Comments

Palsgard on December 31, 2023 at 7:58 pm

The guide worked like a charm!
Thanks alot!

Reply
Rob on December 26, 2023 at 11:09 am
Hello Emmet,
This is really great tutorial. I am just going trough it and came across following messages in the step 9 as result of command ‘sudo apt update’.
```
Get:9 https://dl.ui.com/unifi/debian stable/ubiquiti amd64 Packages [713 B]
Reading package lists... Done                                                  
W: GPG error: https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu bionic/mongodb-org/3.6 Release: The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG 58712A2291FA4AD5 MongoDB 3.6 Release Signing Key 
E: The repository 'https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu bionic/mongodb-org/3.6 Release' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'ubiquiti/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'https://www.ui.com/downloads/unifi/debian stable InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'i386'
```
Could you please advise what could go wrong here?

Thanks and regards
Rob

Reply
1. Emmet on December 27, 2023 at 12:36 am
  
  Editor
  
  Hi Rob,
  
  It looks like you are facing two different errors here. The first one is caused by the GPG key for MongoDB 3.6 expiring. I have updated the tutorial to use MongoDB 4.4 as that is now meant to be the latest supported version for the UniFi controller.
  
  The second issue is caused by the Ubiquiti repository thinking you are running a 32-bit operating system (i386). UniFi and MongoDB only supports 64-bit.
  
  If you are certain you are running a 64-bit OS, I can try looking into this further.
  
  Kind regards,
  Emmet
2. Rob on December 30, 2023 at 9:34 pm
  
  Hi Emmet,
  Thank you very much for updating tutorial with new version of Mongo DB. I went through it on fresh server installation and everything worked perfectly.
  Again great thanks!
  
  All the best and kind regards
  Robert
Os on September 6, 2023 at 11:25 pm

This Guide was very helpful thank you, it worked perfectly for me on Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS

Reply
1. SR on December 9, 2023 at 5:21 am
  
  Hello. Amazing and fast tutorial. I was wondering how to update server for new releses in future ? Thank you.
2. Emmet on December 9, 2023 at 6:39 pm
  
  Editor
  
  Hi Sr,
  
  Since we are installing the Unifi controller through their repository, updates should be provided when you run an “apt update” and an “apt upgrade” just like any other package.
  
  Kind Regards,
  Emmet
Umohbom on August 1, 2023 at 1:19 am

Hi Emmet,

I’ve spent a huge amount of time following other tutorials, even the one provided by Ubiquiti, to get their controller up and running. Yours is the only one that worked for me! It’s running in a LXD container on my QNAP NAS. Fantastic stuff!.

Keep up the great work, and thanks a bunch!

Best regards,
Umo

Reply
kevin on April 24, 2023 at 11:35 pm

I get an architecture error when installing the libssl:
$ sudo dpkg -i libssl1.1.deb
dpkg: error processing archive libssl1.1.deb (–install):
package architecture (amd64) does not match system (arm64)
Errors were encountered while processing:
libssl1.1.deb

Reply
1. Emmet on April 25, 2023 at 12:16 am
  
  Editor
  Hi Kevin,
  
  This tutorial makes an assumption that you are running Ubuntu on an x64 system (Not an ARM based device like the Raspberry Pi).
  
  Can you please try using the following command instead to download the ARM64 version of that library.
  
  wget http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl1.1_1.1.1f-1ubuntu2_arm64.deb -O libssl1.1.deb
  
  The problem you are going to run into after this however is that MongoDB doesn’t provide an ARM64 build for MongoDB 3.6 through their repository.
  
  Instead of running steps from 7 to 10, you will instead need to do the following.
  
  First, download a compatible version of MongoDB 3.6 for ARM architectures
  
  wget https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu/dists/xenial/mongodb-org/3.6/multiverse/binary-arm64/mongodb-org-server_3.6.23_arm64.deb -O mongodb_arm64.deb
  
  Next, install that package to your system.
  
  sudo dpkg -i mongodb_arm64.deb
  
  After this it should hopefully be safe to continue from step 11. I haven’t had a chance to test this for myself so there may be further issues when attempting to do this on an ARM based system.
  
  Please let me know how you get on with this.
  
  Cheers,
  Emmet
2. kevin on April 28, 2023 at 8:38 am
  Thanks Emmet.
  When I go to install mongodb_arm64.deb, it errors with the depends on libssl1.0.0.
  
  sudo dpkg -i mongodb_arm64.deb
  
  [sudo] password for kspi4ubiq: Selecting previously unselected package mongodb-org-server. (Reading database ... 180105 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack mongodb_arm64.deb ... Unpacking mongodb-org-server (3.6.23) ... dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mongodb-org-server: mongodb-org-server depends on libssl1.0.0 (>= 1.0.2~beta3); however: Package libssl1.0.0 is not installed. dpkg: error processing package mongodb-org-server (--install): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ... Errors were encountered while processing: mongodb-org-server
3. Emmet on April 28, 2023 at 8:15 pm
  
  Editor
  Hi Kevin,
  
  Sorry to see that you are still running into issues. I personally haven’t had any chance to test this tutorial on an ARM device.
  
  Please try using the following two commands to install an older version of Libssl.
  
  wget http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl1.0.0_1.0.2g-1ubuntu4_arm64.deb -O libssl1.0.deb sudo dpkg -i libssl1.0.deb
  
  Cheers,
  Emmet
Rafid on March 20, 2023 at 2:31 am

This is probably the best guide to install UniFi Controller on Ubuntu.
Thank you!

Reply
Jon on October 10, 2022 at 7:37 am

Thanks Emmet! Much appreciated again!! Long live Mongo

[URLSNIPPED]

Reply

Thanks a ton for posting this! Very helpful. Almost there, but getting the errors

_______

$ sudo apt install unifi
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 unifi : depends: mongodb-server (< 1:4.0.0) but it is not installable or
                  mongodb-10gen (< 4.0.0) but it is not installable or
                  mongodb-org-server (< 4.0.0) but 6.0.2 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

——————

Have confirmed Mongo is installed and running (and reinstalled) Also getting a notificating during apt update

—————

Hit:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-security InRelease
Hit:1 https://dl.ubnt.com/unifi/debian stable InRelease                      
Hit:3 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy InRelease                      
Hit:4 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates InRelease
Hit:5 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports InRelease
Ign:6 https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu bionic/mongodb-org/3.6 InRelease
Ign:7 https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu focal/mongodb-org/6.0 InRelease
Hit:8 https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu bionic/mongodb-org/3.6 Release
Hit:10 https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu focal/mongodb-org/6.0 Release
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
W: https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu/dists/focal/mongodb-org/6.0/Release.gpg: Key is stored in legacy trusted.gpg keyring (/etc/apt/trusted.gpg), see the DEPRECATION section in apt-key(8) for details.

——–

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

thanks again!

Emmet on October 9, 2022 at 10:35 am

Editor

Hi Jon,

It looks like you have a newer version of MongoDB installed (6.0) on your Ubuntu system.

The problem here is that the UniFi controller relies on a much older version of MongoDB (3.6). I am not aware if you are actually able to run two versions of MongoDB alongside each other.

The only solution would be to uninstall MongoDB 6.0 from your system and remove the repository providing that version of MongoDB.

Cheers,
Emmet

Installing the UniFi Controller on Ubuntu

Adding the UniFi Repository to Ubuntu

Installing Libssl1.1

Adding the MongoDB Repository

Installing MongoDB 3.6 to Ubuntu

Installing the UniFi Network Controller

Using the UniFi Controller Web Interface

Accessing the Ubuntu UniFi Controller

First Run of the UniFi Controller

Conclusion

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