This guide is for you if you have an existing UniFi site on a Cloud Key, a self-hosted instance or another hosting provider and are looking to move to HostiFi. If you are moving from a UDM, UDR or another UniFi Cloud Gateway then please follow our dedicated guide.
Before you get started
Before you get started, please make sure you have done the following:
Make sure that you are a super admin on the UniFi Controller
Make sure that both UniFi Controller instances are on the same version of software, otherwise you will see the following error message when importing the site file:
Exporting the site
First log into your existing UniFi Controller, the click on the 'Settings' icon
Next, click on 'System'
From there, click on 'Export Site'
Next, click on 'Download the Site Export File' to download the site file and keep this safe. We'll need this later on in this guide. Then, click on 'Continue'
Next, we need to go to our new UniFi Controller and import the new file. Leave the existing controller page open as we'll need to come back to this.
Importing to the new UniFi controller
To import the site file, click on the site switcher in the top left hand corner, then click on 'Add New'
Next, click on 'Import Site' then choose the file downloaded from your existing UniFi server.
Once the file is added, give the site a new name - this can be the same as the site it is coming from, then click 'Add'
Next, check the new site has been added. If it proceed to the next section.
Starting the migration
To start the migration, go back to the original UniFi controller and click on 'Continue'
Next, type in the hostname for your new UniFi server, this can be found from the app.hostifi.com portal if you don't have it to hand.
Make sure to leave out the http:// and :8443 and just have 'm0xxxxxx.hostifi.com'. Also leave 8080 in the next box.
Select the devices you wish to migrate and then click 'Migrate Devices'
Next, check the new UniFi server to see if the devices have come online. This process can take up to 5 minutes.
Once all the devices have migrated, go back to the old UniFi server and click 'Remove Devices'
Once completed, the UniFi devices will appear in the new UniFi controller
Why not do a full backup/restore of UniFi?
We typically recommend using the site migration wizard instead of UniFi's backup/restore because:
A backup/restore migrates all sites and device configurations, but the devices themselves are not migrated, so you would need to have them all connected to a DNS name, and change the DNS name to the new server IP. The migration wizard is easier because it allows you to migrate the devices to the new server without changing any DNS records.
A backup/restore only works one time. If you have multiple UniFi servers, the only way to migrate them into the one HostiFi server is to use the site migration wizard.
Still want to do a full backup/restore?
It makes sense to do a full backup/restore if:
All of your existing UniFi sites are connected to one server
All UniFi devices connect to the server using a DNS name you control
In that case, you can do a full backup, restore, then update DNS to the new HostiFi server IP address and devices will migrate.
Troubleshooting
If the devices did not connect to HostiFi after the migration, you might have made a typo in the hostname or used a port other than 8080 in the migration wizard. You can still SSH into each device and set-inform it to manually adopt to the new server.
HostiFi
HostiFi provides hosting for both Ubiquiti and TP-Link software-defined-networking (SDN) applications, with servers for UniFi, UISP and Omada. We also offer professional networking consulting, with HostiFi Pro.
If you run into any issues, send an email to support@hostifi.com or contact us via live chat.