Adopting our first unifi access point to our unifi cloud controller with aws
There are a few ways to skin this cat. We'll be focusing on two scenarios which you'll most likely find yourself in when creating your own FreeLynk network.
1. Navigate to https://www.ubnt.com/download/utilities and download the Ubiquiti Device Discovery Tool. Either for all platforms or you specific operating system works fine. After the program is downloaded, run it and hit scan.
2. As you can see our discovery tool has found our router, switch, RocketM5 and multiple NanoStations on our network. At this point your network should look very similar, perhaps minus a few NanoStations. We'll need one more tool before we can proceed with the device adoption.
3. Navigate to www.putty.org then click the link which states "You can download PuTTY here"
4. We only need the executable file or "exe" so scroll down a bit to find the option in the image above. Click the putty.exe link to start the download of the program.
5. Save the file to proceed.
6. Navigate to the saved file location
7. Run or open the putty file
8. If you're brought to the PuTTY config window, then so far so good! Lets keep going!
There are two routes from here. Either directly connecting your access point to your switch/router or by connecting it to a wireless bridge. The process is fundamentally the same, however sometimes programming across bridges can fail. Knowing both methods is a good just in case.
Showing here an access point connected directly to a SolarLynk device.
Showing instead an access point connected directly to the ToughSwitch.
Each of these applications can be applied when initially programming the access point.
Begin by connecting the access point to the POE port of the injector, and the LAN port to your switch or bridge. If you're using a bridge without a secondary port like the NanoStation, use the LAN port on the injector, to connect to the LAN port on a second injector. This injector will power the access point through the POE port.
9. Navigate to your AWS Unifi controller dashboard.
10. Click the devices button on the left hand side. From now on, adopted access points on our network will be displayed in this screen.
11. Bring back your unifi discovery tool from before. Click scan to find the new access point on the network. At this point, the AP will default to the unifi default of 192.168.1.20... but if you have a DHCP server on your network (like your router should be doing) you will soon after be issued a new IP address.
12. After about 20 seconds our AP was given a new address. Click scan every 10 seconds or so until your AP does the same.
13. Bring up your PuTTY application, enter the new IP address of the new AP, then click open.
14. The PuTTY window should open up a black log in window. The default username/password is ubnt/ubnt.
15. If successful you should be greeted with the BusyBox shell screen. From here you can ask or demand a variety of commands, but well focus on just two.
16. Check the details of the device by typing the word "info" and hitting enter. This will bring up the specific device information. Its worth noting that in PuTTY, hitting the UP arrow on your keyboard direction pad will tell PuTTY to copy the last command issued. Try it for yourself, this will be useful coming up.
17. Our next command will be to set the "inform URL". After using this command you will not be able to find the AP using the discovery tool. This will tell the access point to use and lock onto our AWS unifi controller instead of waiting around for a local controller to adopt it instead.
As soon as you issue the adopt command, you'll need to immediately switch to your Unifi controller in the devices screen, and click the adopt button to the right of the newly shown pending AP. The moment you hit adopt in this screen, switch back to PuTTY, hit the up arrow on your keyboard and issue the adopt command again. This will ensure without a doubt your device will become adopted. Sometimes without this specific method the adoption may time out and fail. Type the following command when you're ready to start this sequence.
set-inform https://YOURAWSSERVERIP:8080/inform
18. Click adopt in the right hand action column.
19. Immediately send the inform command again.
20. Success! While it provisions, give yourself a high five.
21. From here, when you click on the device, the right hand side options menu will appear. By clicking the configuration tab, we can give our AP a new name to help identify it in the future. We sometimes use area identifiers, building addresses and other similar methods to keep things organized in the network map, which well show you later. For now we'll name ours "FreeLynkTutorial."
22. After you've renamed it, if given the option to upgrade the firmware, click the upgrade button on the right side of the device column like we have shown above. This will unlock all the best of what these devices have to offer. Always keep your devices updated.
23. Click over to the maps icon on the left bar, then the configure maps button at the top right.
24. Click the green add a map button
25. Click the link, log in and follow the guide to get yourself an API key. You can leave it unresrcited at first, but eventually go back in and change it to only accept requests from your webserver's IP address.
26. Once you finish the API key registration, enter into your controller settings. Apply the changes when you're ready
27. Head back over to maps, then configure maps again
28. Add a map...again....
29. Once your map is available, enter your city or zip code to find your area. Click save when you've found it
30. Click the unplaced devices button at the left column
31. Click and drag the access points out to their corresponding places on the map
32. Once placed, click the coverage button at the top to see where your signal is going! You've successfully adopted the access points. Congrats!