New UniFi High Availability - Automatic Shadow Mode in OS 4.0

[@Oslohiker]

I really like that you're doing unifi-stuff now.

[@rich-it-hp]

Out of all of the videos I've seen on KZbin for this device, you are the only one who broke down the WAN connection well enough for me to get a proper understanding of how this works so that I can have a plan before these devices get here of how to implement them. Thank you!

[@TangDynasty1983]

Does your AT&T modem have multiple LAN ports? When you plugged the WANs of both consoles to the AT&T modem, did they each get their own public IP? Thank you.

[@SpaceRexWill]

So the ATT Modem has multiple LAN ports. Then I have a brick of public IPs that I could use. But in this case the IPs are only ever assigned to the primary router, and move when they fail over.

[@bizzfo]

How are app and OS updates handled? Standby is updated then it takes over then the original Primary is updated then it takes over?

[@ericnix8740]

Do you know if you're upgrading firmware, will it upgrade the first gateway, switch over to the second, and then switch back to the first and upgrade the second -- or does it upgrade both at the same time?

[@alexs1309]

Is this coming to the gateway lineup too? Specifically the uxg-pro. Surely the biggest benefactor for this level of redundancy would be multi site setups (unsupported by the udm lineup) so you don't have an onsite emergency if a gateway goes down!

[@bsem68]

Great video. The previous version of Shadow Mode required swapping HDD during manual failover but this new method does not, but does it still need HDD swapped over after? I presume this is for network app only so if one is using other apps like protect or access there is no high availability for those, unless that is the purpose of the HDD swap?

[@RexinOridle]

I use Direct SFP from the ISP to the UDM. Right now I don't see any high availability option for that.

[@alexstaufenstedt9896]

Does your ISP serve a DHCP address for your WAN Port or is it static?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Static, But also has DHCP

[@alexstaufenstedt9896]

@@SpaceRexWill Thanks for your answer. We are currently having "no ip address" error when the failover happens and I wanted to make sure its not due to our static IP setup. Thanks again.

[@pkennethv]

If my ISP provided combo box will only output to one ethernet port when put into bridge mode, would I need to take that connection, and plug it into a switch, in order to get two "WAN" ethernet cables to plug into each of the UDMs?

[@SpaceRexWill]

You can get a cheap unmanaged switch to use that

[@EnriqueReyes]

Great video, How does one become a UniFi affiliate? There site says only by invite. How to get an invite?

[@SpaceRexWill]

I actually asked a long time ago and got no where. Then one day they just reached out

[@pkennethv]

Do we have confirmation of whether this will also be coming to the UDM Pro (OG), and UDM SE? And would one be able to configure a UDM SE to failover to a UDM Pro?

[@SpaceRexWill]

I believe it will be coming to all of them. It's been billed as a unifi 4.0 feature

[@spasmonaut10]

The gateways have to be the same model per Ubiquiti, meaning, UDMP to UDMP, UDMP SE to UDMP SE, etc.

[@pkennethv]

@@spasmonaut10 thank you

[@enkrypt3d]

how does this work with dual wan??

[@rayk32]

The failover implementation is not ready. I set it up on 2 SE's and the only way failover would occur was to lose the entire primary box. I pulled the WAN connection and LAN connection and no failover occurred, failover would not activate until I pulled port 7. This is not "real life" because you can lose individual links, the entire box does not always fail. Also when I reconnected port 7, the primary did not take over and the console continued to report that failover had occurred. I then rebooted the primary by pulling the cable and immediately lost pings ... this should not have happened because the secondary was supposed to be active according to the console. When the primary reboot completed the console continued to report the failover was in an "activated" state. It has been 30 minutes and the console still reports that failover is activated. I then pulled power on the secondary and lost 61 pings before the Internet restored. I waited 1000 pings to the Internet and the shadow gateway is still reporting offline in the console. 30 minutes later, I deleted the shadow config then rebooted the offline shadow box and lost 7 pings. I then pulled the Internet and LAN connections on the shadow box and lost all pings to the Internet. Internet was restored by plugging in the Internet connection on the secondary box, because traffic was flowing through the failover link (port 7). That link should only be carrying heartbeat and config sync. I now have all traffic flowing through the original primary SE and I've factory defaulted the shadow SE. I don't even want to touch on the fact that I have two 1 Gb Internet connections ... but I'll just say the second WAN connection would never show connected on the shadow box regardless of it's failover state. I pulled that connection from the config before I did the testing above. It's 5:19 am! I'm going to bed. YMMV but every implementation of every feature, function and network protocol that Unifi does is straight up weird and it seems like they are reinventing the wheel. I have a house full of their stuff though because the cost and power draw beats Cisco Catalyst stuff all day every day.

[@Polkster13]

If you are using the UniFi Cable modem, it only has one 2.5 GbE WAN port. How would you do the automatic Shadow Mode with two UDM SE consoles using the UniFi Cable Modem? Or is that not possible?

[@spasmonaut10]

Wondering the same thing; very interested in seeing what the solution is there.

[@Polkster13]

@@spasmonaut10 I figured it out. Talked with a UniFi employee and they said to get a small unmanaged switch and put it between the UCI Modem and the two UDM SE's. So it is COAX -> UCI Modem -> RJ45 -> unmanaged switch -> two RJ45's -> one each to UDM SE's. Works like a charm. Of course if you have two separate ISP's, run each to each of your consoles and you can bypass the switch.

[@spasmonaut10]

@@Polkster13 ok that's what I was anticipating. Seems shortsighted on Ubiquiti's part to miss that opportunity within their own product catalog to have a more cohesive solution that doesn't involve a customer having to fill in the gap with that functionality regarding their cable modem and Shadow mode for their gateways.

[@Polkster13]

@@spasmonaut10 I believe their thinking was that if you were doing true redundancy, you would have two different ISP's coming in on two different lines. One would go to one console and the other would go to the other console. Then if the primary Internet connection fails, it would auto switch over to the backup ISP provider. If both of these use Coax connections, then you would buy two different UCI modems. That way if the modem fails, it would switch over to the other console using the other modem. If you had fiber coming in, then you would have each fiber connection going to either of the consoles. Then you woud have true redundancy.

[@jeremymyers5503]

I believe this is why they made the PDU Pro to be able to support 2 UDMs from one Wan port in the back. It’s highlighted in the setup guide (or was) with the * coming soon.

[@coolcat23]

15:03 "It looks like..."? What's the point of these tests, if you aren't sure? BTW, when you say "most people", I'd say most people don't need this kind of redundancy. It is neither critical for them to have uninterrupted network traffic, nor would they adequately cover other single point of failure sources. Running a shadow unit requires more energy and while that is justifiable for a select few businesses, it is neither needed nor justifiable for regular users.

[@SpaceRexWill]

This is absolutely only a feature thats needed for businesses, and most of them probably just need the current shadow mode. But for businesses spending 5k+ per day in employee salaries, having a spare router ready to go is pretty easily a cost effective choice to make

[@coolcat23]

@@SpaceRexWill Absolutely.

[@Crazy--Clown]

Most People.... Haha you would be amazed.... I think he meant Most Businesses... Could get pricey specially when you add a UPS. BTW I always recommend for data critical businesses to have a UDMPRO spare in a box ready to go. I've heard of horror stories of a UDMPRO shitting itself and the business is down for days because resellers are waiting on stock or they didn't have any. Now when you have everything in one box it can be a disaster, VOIP, DATA, SURVEILLANCE, DOOR ACCESS. Always think redundancy for businesses where downtime is crucial

[@feastwithethan9412]

This is a one long bloody commercial.