If you have a device that you've tried to set-inform from SSH, but it's not showing up for adoption in your UniFi controller, a common problem is that the device's firmware needs to be manually upgraded before it can be adopted.

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There are several ways to upgrade the device firmware locally, but the easiest way is to use the SSH command.

Find the firmware URL

First, you'll need to locate the appropriate firmware for your specific device model on Ubiquiti's downloads page: https://www.ui.com/download/.

In this example, we'll be upgrading the firmware on a UAP AC Lite. If you are unsure what model you have, you can look at the back of the device or issue the "info" command in SSH.

On the downloads page, search the model of your UniFi device. The search field seems to be pretty good at picking up the model name.

For example, for the UAP-AC-Lite, we just typed in AC Lite

On this page, we have access to firmware releases, software for the UniFi Network Application, user manuals and datasheets.

Next, choose the version you wish to download then right-click on 'Download' and click 'Copy Link' - We only need the link for the upgrade.

Upgrade the device

Windows

Updating the device via SSH on Windows will require a third-party application. We recommend using PuTTY, which can be downloaded here.

macOS

macOS comes with an integrated SSH client built into the Terminal application. To use this issue the following command. Replace username and IP address with the details for your device.

ssh USERNAME@IP_ADDRESS

Now from the SSH prompt, issue the upgrade command. Replace the firmware URL with the appropriate one for your device. The exact command will vary by model and firmware version. For the UAP AC Lite in our example, it is:

upgrade https://dl.ubnt.com/unifi/firmware/U7PG2/6.5.62.14788/BZ.qca956x_6.5.62+14788.230622.2048.bin

The device should reboot with the new firmware version which you can verify with the info command. Then you should be able to set-inform from there, or set-default then set-inform if you have any problems.

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