I've been a home router hobbyist for a while now. Probably goes back to my college days where I was pretty sure I was going to get a Cisco certification. Careers took me a different direction.
I've run stock,
tomato,
wrt,
pfsense,
edge, and now I'm giving a
USG a shot.
That USG sure wants to be set up fresh on a new network. If you're like me, you already have a lot of in place gear and your own subnet setup that you don't want to mess with. I was able to replace my existing non-Ubiquiti router without having to detach anything other than the router.
I have some Ubiquiti gear on my network, so I was already running the controller software on a desktop PC. I'll tell you what, that USG sure didn't want to adopt. This is what I did and it ended up being easy, just took a while to figure out. In the end, I was as able to adopt all the hardware and not lose my existing Ubiquiti controller setup.
Materials:
- Desktop running existing controller
- Laptop running a fresh install of the controller software for windows (or your OS of choice)
- USG
- Network cable
I recommend updating the controller software to the latest version so you're running the save version on both computers. The second computer doesn't have to be a laptop, but it makes it easier to keep track of the computers for descriptive purposes.
- Don't take any gear apart yet, you're going to want internet for the following steps
- Make a backup of the existing controller software on the desktop. That can be found in Settings > Maintenance.
- Copy that backup to the laptop
- Turn off wireless on the laptop and disconnect all other network cables to the laptop
- Restore the controller backup to the laptop (you might have to do some initial config beforehand)
- Connect the laptop with the network cable to the LAN1 port on the USG
- Setup the Settings > Networks so that it mirrors your existing network's DHCP config
- Adopt the USG on the laptop
- Backup the laptop controller config, name the file accordingly
- Disconnect the laptop from the USG and put it back on the existing net
- Transfer the new backup to the desktop and restore it
- Swap out your old router for the USG
- Give everything a restart for good measure
I was getting hung up on the fact that the USG REALLY wants to be 192.168.1.1. You can't adopt a ubiquiti component that is on a different subnet. By hooking up the laptop, it uses the USG's DHCP and the USG can be adopted.
This worked for me and I'm enjoying the USG so far.