Ubiquiti Unifi Controller on FreeNAS

c77dk

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you can run it just fine - in a jail or vm. I ended up just using a vm myself
 

Netdewt

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I'll be running on an Atom E3940 with 8GB RAM. Would either of those be less taxing to the system?
 

c77dk

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with that amount of ram I would try the jail - with vm you generally use more memory. 8GB is the minimum for TrueNAS - are you able to put more ram into the system?
 

sretalla

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If this is not a good solution, I would just get the Unifi dongle I guess. Or Raspberry Pi but that seems like more fiddling for something that's not any cheaper. I'm frustrated with running the controller on my workstation.
A jail should be fine, but keep an eye on performance of the other NAS functions you're using.

To help, there is a community plugin for it, maybe try that as a start.
 
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Jailer

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It's super easy to install in a jail. Create a standard jail and run pkg install unifi5 followed by sysrc "unifi_enable=YES" and then service unifi start and you're up and running.
 

kiriak

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I have Unifi Controller running on a jail, I just used the plug-in.
It is on an old PC with 6 Gb RAM
(with the sole purpose for me to become familiar with TrueNAS before moving to proper hardware).

If I stop the Unifi jail, the RAM used be services is lowered by 400-500 Mb,
so we could assume that this is the impact on RAM ?

There is almost no impact on CPU, as CPU usage (for the whole system) is between 0 and 1% (on an old i3).
 

Netdewt

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Great insight thank you.

This NAS is also for me to learn with, but I also don't want to lose my data. I'll use it as a home server for tax documents and family pictures. 4x4TB HGST Deskstar NAS drives in mirrored vdevs.
 

Jailer

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If I stop the Unifi jail, the RAM used be services is lowered by 400-500 Mb,
so we could assume that this is the impact on RAM ?
Yes, pretty typical for a database on memory usage.
 
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The only problem I had was the version of the UniFi controller provided as a plug-in didn't update regularly. I went back to the UniFi controller on in an ESXi VM....
 

Netdewt

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The only problem I had was the version of the UniFi controller provided as a plug-in didn't update regularly. I went back to the UniFi controller on in an ESXi VM....
So with the plug-in, you can't force an update?

Can you create a jail and not use the plug-in in some way to get the most up to date version?
 

Jailer

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Can you create a jail and not use the plug-in in some way to get the most up to date version?
It's super easy to install in a jail. Create a standard jail and run pkg install unifi5 followed by sysrc "unifi_enable=YES" and then service unifi start and you're up and running.
 

Netdewt

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Right, but N.R said it doesn't update very well. I'm sure I misunderstand all these terms.
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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SweetAndLow

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Since this is a new install it might be better to install unifi6 instead of 5. That way you don't have to migrate to 6 eventually.
 

Netdewt

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Since this is a new install it might be better to install unifi6 instead of 5. That way you don't have to migrate to 6 eventually.
Yeah, I have the site currently set up on 6, controller running on Mac OS. I haven't looked into the details but I assume you can move a site to a different controller.
 

Jailer

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Since this is a new install it might be better to install unifi6 instead of 5. That way you don't have to migrate to 6 eventually.
Unifi6 is not available as a package. If you want it you'll have to install the port and I wouldn't recommend that to most new users without an installation guide to follow.
 
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Another option would be to set up a docker host (yes, more work) and use the jacobalbery container. He (I'm assuming a "he" - "jacob") seems quite good at keeping the container up to date.
 

Netdewt

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I’m open to trying something more difficult as long as I have a strategy to go back. I just dealt with a big headache re-adopting hardware from an old controller I didn’t have access to anymore. In hindsight it was a simple problem, but it was hard to find the solution (USG had to be updated before it would adopt).

It looks like I have to be on 6 if I don’t want to go through that whole process again.

 
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