Layer 3 Adoption with Unifi

In this video, I go over how to perform Layer 3 adoption with Unifi devices (specifically, Unifi access points). Basically, this is just how to get devices added to a controller which sits on a separate network. I cover three "methods" to accomplish this which are the three I typically use in my day-to-day life.

These techniques are not specifically for first-time setups. Sometimes, you may need to use these in order to migrate a controller from one server to another. While there are mechanisms built into the Unifi controller for migrating to different systems, sometimes it can be made even easier by tweaking these settings.

Below are the timestamps as (almost) always...

00:00 - Intro
00:09 - Explanation
02:12 - Different Methods
03:09 - Caveat to the purpose of this video
04:45 - (Method 1) Setting Inform-Address by IP (Manually)
07:19 - (Method 2) Setting Inform-Address by DNS Hostname (Manually)
11:43 - (Method 3) Using DHCP Option 43 to advertise Inform-Address

DISCLAIMER: I messed up when explaining this section. The Hexidecimal representation of the IP address is actually 0a580d76. The first FOUR characters are designators for the device type as well as the IP count. Adding "01" to the beginning of the output will still work, but my explanation was off.

18:43 - Conclusion / Outro

[zacharylewis]

Clear, cut and straight to the point. Great video. Also to add for anyone that may encounter your device going offline after adopting. Just repeat these steps and it will finally stay online. Just remember the default ubnt is replaced with your unifi controller credentials now since you already adopted it the first time.

[darrenoleary]

Great video.
I'd already configured the UniFi Controller option on my ER4, but never knew what the correlation was to my UniFi environment and what it was actually for until now.

[JC-dxfy]

Unifi had a chrome app that will find local devices and let you point them to the controller. I also like to join where the controller is local, and then deploy to it's final destination.

[ocoolsanni]

Remember to turn off firewall of your antivirus if you still can't see it and that the controller's IP is the PC's ipv4 address

[solarguyk]

How do you know/set what ip address the unifi ap will take on the remote address?

[stavroskois]

I have also found that you can do host override on "unifi.localdomain" to point on the unifi's IP and will work.

Depending on your network you might need to change the ".localdomain" part.

[jyy]

How can we do this for the dream router? Using the SSH to inform, but the adoption never turns up in the console.

[iStiflock]

5:38 for UDM Users under network version 7.2.94 the user informaiton can be found under:
settings wheel->system->NETWORK DEVICE SSH AUTHENTICATION.
it has to be enabled to work too!

[gren]

Does option 43 work with the cloud controller? I work at an MSP and our cloud controller is set up to have a site per client. Is there any way I could automate the process so that it would add the AP to the correct site controller on our cloud console?

[mohsinabbass]

Hello sir,

I have installed 3 unifi wifi in 3 different location .I set the name of one office fleet and second office Kapoor and third office Khalid .

The main issue is that when I go any office it's show 3 wifi in any office .it should one wifi show where I go .please resolve my issue .thanks

[enoitnaM]

I'm having one hell of a time trying to do this for one of my remote offices. I have APs in Denver that I'm trying to point to a cloud key gen 2 in DC. and the set inform command goes through, but the controller never see's the ap trying to talk to it

[catlmarc]

Great as always. I don't see a donate button on your channel. How can I donate for all the work you have done?

[Chris-opyt]

Layer 3 of the OSI model means that you have all 3 layers available and no more, therefore making use of protocols that do not need tcp/udp (and ip) for the adoption process, as these are level 4 of OSI. Routing is irrelevant, as that is higher level protocols. If it was using IP, then assuming correct routing, you'd simply connect by IP....but then it wouldnt be called Layer 3.

[EngineScypex]

Here my 2 cents.
First I think it's funny you forgot the most obvious one.
You made it unnecessarily complicated by using a "specialisated" DNS-Name.
If you'd set "unifi" instead of "toasty-unifi" as a DNS Name there would be no need to manually use set-inform. Of course just using "unifi" as a hostname would also work (if you don't prevent it through your DNS Server).
It mostly don't work on 2 different networks, because they don't share DNS.

If you decide to not create "unifi" as DNS-Entry it's ALWAYS recommended to set DHCP 43.
If you need to add a new device you can access it directly through the controller. You don't have to look for the IP and do it manually that way.
It doesn't matter if you set a static ip. For the IP config you still point to your DNS Server and it'll notice if the IP of the controller changed.