There are many excellent guides for setting up a Unifi Controller on CentOS 7, three that helped me:

https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/128121-installing-unifi-controller-on-centos

https://nivethan.dev/devlog/setting-up-unifi-controller-on-centos-7.html

https://binhminhitc.com/networks-solutions/how-to-installing-unifi-controller-on-centos/

However since these were penned there are a few changes in the setup that need to be worked around:

Workarounds

UniFi.unix.zip Download Link

Unifi have stopped advertising the Unix files on the downloads, instead opting to show only the .deb Debian package. To get a file suitable for CentOS…

Navigate to https://www.ui.com/download/unifi/ and choose the download for Unifi Network Application for Debian:

Clicking download icon gives the following link…

Make note of the version number (here 7.1.66) and edit into the the following link:

https://www.ubnt.com/downloads/unifi/7.1.66/UniFi.unix.zip

MongoDB

MongoDB is no longer included in the default CentOS or EPEL repositories, so its own repository needs to be added to your system for prerequisites

Source: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/tutorial/install-mongodb-on-red-hat/#install-mongodb-community-edition

Create a new file at /etc/yum.repos.d/mongodb-org-5.0.repo

Insert the following into the file:

[mongodb-org-5.0]name=MongoDB Repositorybaseurl=https://repo.mongodb.org/yum/redhat/$releasever/mongodb-org/5.0/x86_64/gpgcheck=1enabled=1gpgkey=https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-5.0.asc

Installation is now via:

yum install -y mongodb-org

Installation Guide

Disable SELinux, reboot for changes to take effect

sed -i /etc/selinux/config -r -e 's/^SELINUX=.*/SELINUX=disabled/g'
reboot

Create file to include MongoDB repositories

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/mongodb-org-5.0.repo

Add the following to the new file

 [mongodb-org-5.0]name=MongoDB Repositorybaseurl=https://repo.mongodb.org/yum/redhat/$releasever/mongodb-org/5.0/x86_64/gpgcheck=1enabled=1gpgkey=https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-5.0.asc 

Install prerequisites

yum install -y mongodb-org java-1.8.0-openjdk unzip wget

Download Unifi Controller

wget https://www.ubnt.com/downloads/unifi/7.1.66/UniFi.unix.zip

Unzip files to /opt directory

unzip -q UniFi.unix.zip -d /opt

Create data folder within Unifi directory

mkdir /opt/UniFi/data

Add new user to run service

useradd -r ubnt

Assign ubnt ownership of Unifi directory

chown -R ubnt:ubnt /opt/UniFi

Create firewall rules to allow access to Controller

nano /etc/firewalld/zones/public.xml

Add the following to the file…

  <port protocol="tcp" port="8081"/>
  <port protocol="tcp" port="8080"/>
  <port protocol="tcp" port="8443"/>
  <port protocol="tcp" port="8880"/>
  <port protocol="tcp" port="8843"/>
  <port protocol="tcp" port="27117"/>
  <port protocol="udp" port="3478"/>

Reload firewall for changes to take

firewall-cmd --reload

Enable MongoDB to start with the system, start it for first time and check its running

systemctl enable mongod
systemctl start mongod
systemctl status mongod

Create the service for Unfi Controller

nano /etc/systemd/system/unifi.service

Enter the following in the new file

[Unit]
Description=UniFi AP Web Controller
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=ubnt
WorkingDirectory=/opt/UniFi
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar /opt/UniFi/lib/ace.jar start 
ExecStop=/usr/bin/java -jar /opt/UniFi/lib/ace.jar stop
SuccessExitStatus=143

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable Controller to start with system

systemctl enable unifi

Start the Unifi Controller

systemctl start unifi

Controller should now be available for setup by browsing to
https://{IP ADDRESS}:8443/

Unifi Testing

I need the Unifi Controller in order to test the Nano HD AP, why? This is the only Unifi AP in stock in the UK at the moment, all other more preferred AP’s like the Pro, LR and HD are unobtainium along with the Cloud Key. Therefore in desperation its time to test if these will make a worthy substitute.

Its early days at present, but should testing go well and I choose to adopt Unifi as my home Wifi solution, I’d be deploying a slim VM running Rocky 8 to manage the infrastructure.

So far for testing; the AP is positioned a foot away from a Draytek 2927ac, at moderate distances the Unifi Nano is showing a 10db advantage over the Draytek on 2.4Ghz range, but curiously a 10db disadvantage on the 5Ghz range. And while devices report a better signal strength on the Unifi, bandwidth speed tests yield poor results.

I would hope that the Pro’s performance would be an improvement on the Nano, but for now that is entirely speculation since getting hands on one is impossible without paying scalper prices.

Many of our systems deployed from OVA’s use Gentoo as it’s base OS for inexplicable reasons, here’s how to increase the drive capacity of a VM instance running Gentoo and make the extra space usable…

Prework

SSH into the machine and identify the volume to benefit from the increase by entering

df -h

In this scenario the /home mount point requires the extra space, this is served by the /dev/sda4 Filesystem.

Now discover which disk this is on and where it sits in the layout of the disk (partition):

fdisk -l

The virtual disk is detailed towards the end of the output, and is identified with sda, multiple disks will be lableled sdb, sdc etc.

Along with the partition table at the end:

/dev/sda4 is located towards the end of the disk as denoted by the start and end sectors, so will be able to increase the disk by adding extra storage onto what is effectively the end of the drive.

Increase Drive Capacity.

Shut down the VM.

At the hypervisor, edit the configuration of the VM and enter a new capacity.

IM

Start up the VM, restore any Replications (and wait for initial sync to complete)

Highly recommended to take a snapshot at this point.

Reconfigure Partitions

SSH back into the machine, fdisk -l can be used again to sanity check that the drive now has increased capacity:

Now to assign this extra capacity to the volume, edit the disk partitions by entering:

fdisk /dev/sda

To refresh yourself on the current partition layout, enter p command to view, it also helps to have this on screen for the next steps…

As mentioned, here the goal is to increase /dev/sda4. To achieve this we need to remove this partition then re-add it to overlay the current structure but including the extra space. Sounds scary, but these changes aren’t in place until we commit the changes later. Nevertheless a good time to check the recent snapshot has completed.

Delete the current partition using command “d”, then entering partition number:

Again, can you the “p“ command to check its gone.

Now create the new partition with the “n” command.

Prompted for the first sector, enter the same value recorded on the original partition

The last sector, enter the default value shown, this should be greater than the original partition as there’s more storage available.

Output will advise that partition is made, then ask if you want to remove the signature. Enter NO to keep it, as we want to keep the original partition intact.

Finally, enter “w” command to write and commit the changes.

Reboot the VM.

Assign new space.

On restart, using fdisk -l will confirm the partition is bigger:

However, df -h will not have increased:

To use the extra space, we need to tell Gentoo that its available to use by entering:

resize2fs /dev/sda4

Output should look like this:

Now df -h will reflect the extra space and is ready to use: