Updating and Installing Self-Hosted UniFi Network Servers (Linux)

This article provides the steps to install and update the self-hosted UniFi Network Server to the current stable release on a Debian or Ubuntu system via APT (Advanced Package Tool). If you run into issues following the process described in this article, please take a look at the scripts provided here to install and update the UniFi Network Application.

Requirements

In order to update the UniFi Network Server via APT, it is necessary to create source files or edit lines in an existing sources.list file with Linux text editors: vi or nano. The repo structure should be permanent, but if there are any changes, they will be pointed out in the UniFi Network software version release posts, found in the Release section of the Community.

Before upgrading the UniFi Network Server, make sure that you have backed up the UniFi Network Database. You will need to make sure that the user has sudo permissions. For more information about adding a user to sudo list, see this Debian article.

UniFi Network APT Steps

See an example of what scripts the UI Community is using to install and update the UniFi Network Server on any Ubuntu or Debian-based system in this Community post.

1. Install required packages before you begin with the following command:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ca-certificates apt-transport-https

2. Use the following command to add a new source list:

   echo 'deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 ] https://www.ui.com/downloads/unifi/debian stable ubiquiti' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/100-ubnt-unifi.list

3. Add the GPG Keys.
   1. Method A - Recommended
      1. Install the following trusted key into /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d

         sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/unifi-repo.gpg https://dl.ui.com/unifi/unifi-repo.gpg

   2.  Method B
      1. Using apt-key:

         sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 06E85760C0A52C50

4. For a new UniFi Network Server, install MongoDB. For Ubuntu 22.04, run the commands below. If you're updating the UniFi Network Server to version 7.5, ignore these commands and instead refer to MongoDB's help article to update your database to the required MongoDB version 3.6.

   wget -qO - https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-3.6.asc | sudo apt-key add -
   echo "deb https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu bionic/mongodb-org/3.6 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.6.list
   sudo apt-get update

   This step may not be required, depending on the Linux distro you have. If your distro does not come with MongoDB, and it's not available in their repo, then please see the MongoDB installation guide (Ubuntu | Debian). 
5. Install and upgrade the UniFi Network application with the following command:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install unifi -y

6. The UniFi Network application should now be accessible at the computer's configured local or public IP address, by typing that IP address in a browser's navigation bar (Chrome is recommended). If it is not launching, use the following command:
   sudo service unifi start

When using the commands above, it is assumed you have sudo and wget installed. More information about sudo can be found here, and wget here.

Other Helpful Commands

• To stop the UniFi service: sudo service unifi stop
• To restart the UniFi service: sudo service unifi restart
• To see the status of UniFi service: sudo service unifi status

Log Files Location

Log files are essential for any troubleshooting. Find them here:

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

If your application is running on a Unix/Linux based system, then you will require superuser (sudo) privileges to access these log files.

Notes and Tips