UniFi devices can be controlled by using SSH, which can be useful for troubleshooting when working with HostiFi support or connecting to devices remotely.

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For example, if your UniFi device is offline or struggling to connect to a UniFi server, using the info command on APs, switches and UXG devices can be a vital part of the process when trying to fix a problem.

What is SSH?

Secure Socket Shell, or SSH for short is a command based tool and is used to get access to various devices including web servers and for this purpose, network devices.

How to SSH into a UniFi device?

To SSH into a UniFi device, this can be done from two ways. Either direct from your computer or using the debug terminal within the UniFi Application. More information is available here regarding the debug terminal.

To SSH from a computer, if using macOS then the provided Terminal app has SSH capability baked in. If using Windows, you will need to download PuTTY to use SSH.

What will the credentials be?

UniFi devices use a few different formats for default username and passwords. For example, UniFi APs with older firmware will be ubnt/ubnt, UXG models will be root/ubnt and some newer devices will be ui/ui.

If the device has already been adopted, then the username and password is globally set per site for the devices. You can find this by logging into your UniFi Controller.

First, click on Settings

Then System

Click on Advanced, then scroll down to the Device Authentication section. The username and password is here and these are site specific.

If you have multiple sites on the server, then the username and passwords for the devices on each site will be different. These are randomised and set automatically by the controller.

Which commands should I use?

For UniFi devices, we can issue various commands to get information and perform various tasks. For example:

• info - Running the info command will display important info such as which URL is set for the device to connect to.
• set-inform - Running set-inform is part of the cloud adoption process. However, we do now recommend using our Device Discovery Tool.
• uptime - Shows the uptime of the device
• reboot - Reboots the device
• help - Lists all the possible SSH commands available
• syswrapper.sh restore-default & set-default & - Resets the UniFi device to its factory default settings