reillychase

> config.gateway.json Yes you can do it in the json file, and that works on https://hostifi.net

> Internet down There's not really anything you would need to change on the controller to fix a WAN issue that you couldn't fix by changing the WAN settings on the USG's web interface... Never had a problem so far with it anyway, with 25,000+ UniFi devices that people have connected to HostiFi. Also, one benefit of a WAN down situation with the cloud controller is you get a notification email about it. On a local controller you won't get a WAN down notification email because... well, it can't send it.

Hi Joe! At https://hostifi.net we have tons of people using the USGs and connecting them to the cloud server. The USG actually is the only UniFi device that has a web gui and it has configuration options for setting up the WAN before you adopt it specifically to solve that problem - how to get internet up so you can adopt to a cloud server.

If you have a couple static IPs at one site though, keep in mind that the USG can only do one static IP (without having to dive into CLI), so for any more advanced network like that most people are using a different router vendor but sticking with the UAPs and UniFi switches for the rest of the network.

We also have lots of people using both the built-in hotspot portal pages as well as external portals just fine.

As others have mentioned, if the controller goes down, the networks do not go down. All of the device settings are stored locally and don't depend on the controller, the only exception being that the hotspot pages do require the controller to be online in order to work.

You're assuming that there is just one location, and if so, it is cheaper to buy a Cloud Key than use a service like this or https://hostifi.net

The benefit comes in when you have many locations, and can replace a bunch of Cloud Keys with a single server, and have someone else manage updates for you and help with support questions.

At HostiFi 90% of my customers are IT service providers who use the service to replace a ton of Cloud Keys with the single server.

Ubiquiti's cloud offering is very expensive ($299/year base fee + $199/year for each +10 devices), and from customers who have told me about it before they switched to HostiFi, the support is not good, they don't keep the servers updated, and you can't get access to use a custom domain name/modify some of the stuff under the hood.

I'm not a big fan of their Ubiquiti Device Discovery Tool, I always recommend using SSH method for adoption which is very reliable: https://support.hostifi.net/en/articles/3044211-unifi-cloud-...

At https://hostifi.net we are working on 2 new plans launching soon, a 5 device $3.99/month or $39/year plan and a 3 site, 15 device plan at $9.99/month or $99/year. Trying to find the price point for those small install/home users is tricky. Our primary customers are the IT/MSP business owners who manage all of their customer networks from one server.

Thanks for the mention! It's certainly not passive though (like I thought it was going to be when I started it lol), I'm working on it 40+ hours/week and just hired our first support engineer, Safwan. He used to work for Ubiquiti support for 2 years before he joined this month. We've got over 25,000 Ubiquiti devices connected across ~600 servers. The daily work involves helping people with support questions, demos, migrations, testing UniFi updates, rolling them out to the servers, setting up SSL certs, and developing new features. We're working on a new website currently as well.

Great post, and appreciate what he is saying. But in this case I'm kind of locked into WordPress and the plugins I'm using. It will be much easier to start over with Laravel Spark which will give me more control. From there, I agree that it should never be rewritten again, only refactored.

Good to know. Recommendation instead?

I'm actually looking at using Intercom now instead of FreshDesk, FreshChat, and Drip.

Sorry about Medium lol I'm just lazy. I plan to get around to hosting my own blog on Ghost.

No reason really. What would you suggest?

It really is a complete rewrite - switching from WordPress to Laravel (no code being reworked really there ...) and then rewriting the backend Python scripts to be OOP (minimal code reuse)

Well actually that is exactly what I did ... https://github.com/GhostiFi

I don't have control what goes on outside the VPS, but root access is my proof to my customers that I am not logging. Certainly no VPS is the magic pill to internet security or anonymity.

it's back online now, just my little server on DigitalOcean running this

didn't see the wave coming, I got it back online now

It's not just a VPS with OpenVPN installed, the main reason why I built it was to be able to click a button and migrate the server to a new location/IP address on demand. Since then I also added "Invisibility Mode" which tunnels VPN over HTTPS bypassing restrictive firewalls, and next I am working on adding pi-hole support to it :)