Iquit: Monitoring Strategies And User Privacy

Ubiquiti offers monitoring tools for its UniFi Network controllers, which provide performance metrics such as temperature, memory, CPU usage, load averages, wired and wireless traffic overviews, site throughput metrics, and individual access point metrics. This data can be accessed through the Ubiquiti UniFi Network API. There are also third-party tools available for monitoring Ubiquiti devices, such as Domotz, LibreNMS, UptimeKuma, and LogicMonitor. These tools can provide additional features such as remote management, advanced performance monitoring, and network mapping.

Monitoring Ubiquiti UniFi WiFi with PRTG

Ubiquiti Networks offers a range of wireless hardware and software for enterprise WiFi and operator WiMAX wireless data communication. One way to monitor Ubiquiti UniFi WiFi is with PRTG's standard SNMP sensors together with Ubiquiti's private MIB files. This lets you monitor each access point in depth, giving you insight into any data available in the MIB file. However, monitoring single access points via SNMP has a few disadvantages:

• The UniFi series only supports SNMP v1
• You will need SNMP access to each access point, which could be an issue if they are spread across multiple locations
• You can only view details about one access point at a time, and can only display metrics that one access point knows. Global metrics for the entire installation aren’t available from a single access point because one AP simply doesn’t have a global overview.

To improve visibility into your UniFi environment, you can use a custom script sensor to monitor the controller directly, giving you an overview of all of your access points in a single sensor. This script uses the UniFi RESTful API to pull data into PRTG, where it will then display controller metrics such as:

• Response time from the controller’s API
• The number of access points connected to the controller (UAPs in “connected” status)
• The total number of connected clients, including guests
• The total number of connected guests
• The number of upgradeable access points (UAPs in “connected” status, with the “upgradeable” flag set)

This script collects all data directly from the UniFi controller, so you’ll see a global overview of all access points connected to that controller. And you only need HTTP access to the controller – you don’t need SNMP access to each individual access point.

In addition, a German blogger has extended this script to include clients/ virtual network, and RX and TX bytes, dropped and errors.

Monitoring Ubiquiti UniFi devices with Domotz

Domotz is a remote network management software that allows you to monitor and manage your Ubiquiti UniFi devices, including network switches, Wi-Fi controllers, and access points.

Features of Domotz for Ubiquiti UniFi Devices:

• Remote management: Reboot devices, control PoE switches, and access your devices remotely through Domotz's mobile and web apps.
• Performance statistics: Monitor performance statistics for each SSID exposed by UniFi Access Points, such as connected clients' information, radio transmission power, channel, noise level, band, and more.
• Advanced performance monitoring: Monitor signal strength of UniFi access points and connected clients, access point traffic utilisation, and Wi-Fi clients' traffic utilisation.
• Automated device mapping and network mapping: Domotz automatically identifies all devices on the network, including Ubiquiti UniFi devices, and creates a network topology map that is continuously updated in real time.
• Integration with UniFi Controller Services: Connect Domotz to the UniFi Controller using your UniFi credentials to access additional network management features.
• Enhanced alerts and notifications: Receive comprehensive alerts and notifications for UniFi devices, including email, SMS, and messaging platforms.
• Cloud remote management: Domotz integrates directly with the UniFi cloud for fast and reliable remote access to all your devices.
• Better diagnostics and troubleshooting: Get instant alerts, better understand system behaviour, and easily troubleshoot remotely with Domotz.
• Additional device information: Retrieve advanced information about Ubiquiti UniFi devices, such as firmware version, device serial number, port PoE consumption, and radio details.
• Advanced monitoring for UniFi network switches: Get network topology maps, perform PoE reboots, and access additional information for managed network switches, including port status, upload/download traffic, lost packets, and errors, all with historical graphs.

Setting up Domotz with Ubiquiti UniFi:

To enable the integration of Domotz with Ubiquiti UniFi, you need to perform some configuration on the UniFi console. You can choose between two options:

• Option 1 (suggested): Configure a Local Admin Account. This option requires you to create a local admin account on your UniFi Controller, enable the "Restrict to local access only" checkbox, and provide Domotz with the username and password.
• Option 2: Use the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Seed. Since Ubiquiti does not provide APIs that support MFA, you need to enter the MFA seed in the Domotz Portal. This process involves creating a new account on Ubiquiti's website, configuring MFA, obtaining the MFA Seed code, and then entering it into Domotz.

Monitoring Ubiquiti UniFi devices with LogicMonitor

LogicMonitor offers out-of-the-box monitoring for Ubiquiti UniFi devices. The monitoring package uses the Ubiquiti UniFi Network API to query the UniFi Network controller for a variety of performance metrics, including temperature, memory, CPU usage, load averages on security gateways, wired and wireless traffic overviews, site throughput metrics, and individual access point metrics such as overall throughput, error, and packet count monitoring.

Adding a Resource into Monitoring

To add a Ubiquiti UniFi host into monitoring, set a unifi.user and unifi.pass property for the resource that has adequate access permissions to the UniFi Network controller’s API.

Importing LogicModules

From the LogicMonitor repository, import all Ubiquiti UniFi Network modules listed in the LogicModules in Package section. If these LogicModules are already present, ensure you have the most recent versions.

Data Collection

Once the LogicModules are imported (assuming all previous setup requirements have been met), the suite of Ubiquiti Unifi Network modules will automatically begin collecting data.

LogicModules in Package

LogicMonitor’s package for Ubiquiti UniFi Network monitoring consists of the following LogicModules:

• AddCategory_Ubiquiti_UniFi: Discovers if a host is a Ubiquiti UniFi Controller and sets the appropriate system category.
• Ubiquiti_UniFi_AccessPoints: Monitors Ubiquiti UniFi individual access point performance metrics.
• Ubiquiti_UniFi_Sites: Monitors UniFi site status, throughput metrics, connected users and associated access points.
• Ubiquiti_UniFi_Clients_Wired: Monitors Ubiquiti UniFi connected client’s throughput and uptime based on the UniFi API.
• Ubiquiti_UniFi_Clients_Wireless: Monitors Ubiquiti UniFi wireless connected client’s throughput and uptime.
• Ubiquiti_UniFi_Security_Gateways: Monitors Ubiquiti UniFi performance metrics on the Security Gateway devices (USG’s).
• Ubiquiti_UniFi_Switches: Monitors Ubiquiti UniFi individual switch performance metrics.
• PropertySource (required for portals with topology): Sets device External Resource IDs (ERIs) for layer 2 topology mapping of Ubiquiti Unifi devices, including MAC address and an —-–… ERI for wireless mapping using the Ubiquiti Unifi API.
• Ubiquiti_UniFi_Wireless: Maps Ubiquiti UniFi topologies.

Setting Static Datapoint Thresholds

When setting static datapoint thresholds on the various metrics tracked by this package’s DataSources, LogicMonitor follows the technology owner’s best practice KPI recommendations. If necessary, these predefined thresholds can be adjusted to meet the unique needs of a specific environment.

Monitoring Ubiquiti UniFi devices with SNMP

Ubiquiti UniFi devices can be monitored using SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol). This protocol allows information to be collected about network-connected devices in a standardised way across different hardware and software types.

To enable SNMP on Ubiquiti devices using the UniFi controller, you need access to the controller's administrative interface. From there, you can navigate to Settings > Advanced Features, click on Advanced Gateway Settings, and toggle on SNMP Version 1 & 2C while setting a community string. Once the changes are applied, SNMP will be enabled on the devices.

UniFi Controllers also provide an option to enable SNMPv3 within Settings > Advanced Features > Advanced Gateway Settings > SNMP. If this option is unavailable, updating the controller software may be necessary. With SNMPv3, a username and password must be set. The UniFi UI will display a single password field, and the same password must be used for both the authentication and privacy passwords when setting up credentials.

While monitoring Ubiquiti UniFi devices via SNMP, it is important to note that the UniFi series only supports SNMP v1. Additionally, SNMP access is required for each access point, which may be challenging if the access points are spread across multiple locations. Moreover, only one access point can be viewed at a time, limiting the ability to display global metrics for the entire installation.

To overcome these limitations, a custom script sensor can be used to monitor the controller directly, providing an overview of all access points in a single sensor. This script utilises the UniFi RESTful API to pull data, including response time from the controller's API, the number of connected access points and clients, and the number of upgradeable access points.

Furthermore, by using SNMP in conjunction with network monitoring tools such as LibreNMS, UptimeKuma, InfluxDB, Telegraf, Grafana, and Zabbix, users can gain insights into their UniFi devices and receive notifications when devices go offline.

Monitoring Ubiquiti UniFi devices with UniFi Poller

Ubiquiti UniFi devices can be monitored using UniFi Poller, a small Golang application that runs on Windows, FreeBSD, macOS, Linux or Docker. The application opens a web port and when Prometheus polls for data, it translates the UniFi controller API metrics to Prometheus-exported metrics.

UniFi Poller can be set up in Docker using environmental variables. However, some users have reported issues with the UniFi login, which may be due to the format of the username for self-hosted setups. To resolve this issue, it is recommended to use the email address as the 'username' in the config file, formatted correctly with the user's domain.

UniFi Poller provides detailed information for clients in a UniFi network using Prometheus, with data stored in Prometheus by the UniFi Poller. This includes monitoring Ubiquiti UniFi individual access point performance metrics, site status, throughput metrics, connected users and associated access points, connected client's throughput and uptime, and performance metrics on security gateway devices.

Frequently asked questions