Explanation of Unifi AP Groups

On a simple network, all Wireless Access Points (APs) will broadcast all wireless networks (SSIDs). Larger or more complicated networks, however, may need to broadcast some SSIDs from some APs, and different SSIDs for different APs. Consider the following example:

• A community center wants to setup their wireless network. They want to have separate WiFi networks (SSIDs) for Staff and Guest. They also have a couple of dedicated areas in their building that they use to host specific community offerings - a youth gaming room and a special area set aside for church events. They want the Staff and Guest WiFi to be broadcast throughout the building, but they want the SSID for the youth gaming room to only be broadcast from the AP inside the gaming room, and the church event SSID to be broadcast from the AP in that designated area.

A simple explanation

The configuration can be confusing to get your head around, but ultimate the process boils down to:

Problem: We need to define which SSIDs each AP should broadcast.

Solution: Do the following:

1. Create 1 or more AP Groups
2. Add any number of APs to a group
3. Add any number (up to the maximum) of SSIDs to a group

When done, an AP will look at every group it is a part of and broadcast every SSID that is in those groups.

Terminology

The following terminology is specific to Unifi AP Groups and will be used throughout this document.

• AP-to-Group Membership: This defines the AP to AP Group membership. An AP can technically be in multiple groups, but for our examples an AP will only belong to a single group.
• SSID-to-Group Membership: This defines the SSID to AP Group membership. An SSID can (and usually will) be in multiple AP Groups.
• Broadcasting SSIDs: These are the SSIDs that an AP will broadcast based on the AP Groups to which the AP belongs.

• AP Group: An AP Group is a collection of APs that broadcast a collection of SSIDs. There are two ways to configure AP Groups - "in-whole" and "piecemeal".

  • In-Whole: Each AP Group will contain all the SSIDs that will be broadcast from each AP in the group. APs will only belong to a single group.
  • Piecemeal: AP Groups contain common groupings of SSIDs (or a single SSID). An AP will belong to multiple AP Groups.

By default, we use the "in-whole" method because it is easier to troubleshoot and understand for our use cases.

First time configuration of AP Groups

The interface for configuring an AP Group is less than ideal. There are two configuration pages that control an AP Group - the "AP-to-Group Membership" configuration page and the "SSID-to-Group Membership" configuration page.

Determine the AP Group structure you will create before proceeding. It may be helpful to write it down in a list first. Following our example above, my list would be:

• Default AP Group

  • APs:

    • AP1
    • AP2
    • etc

  • SSIDs:

    • Staff WiFi
    • Guest WiFi

• Youth Game Room AP Group

  • APs:

    • Youth AP

  • SSIDs:

    • Staff WiFi
    • Guest WiFi
    • Youth WiFi

• Church Event AP Group

  • APs:

    • Church AP

  • SSIDs:

    • Staff WiFi
    • Guest WiFi
    • Youth WiFi

Notice from our structure above that we will be broadcasting Staff and Guest WiFi on every AP throughout the building, but we will only broadcast the Youth WiFi on the Youth AP and only broadcast the Church WiFi on the Church AP.

Create the Wireless Networks

If not already done, create your wireless networks in the Unifi Controller according to the customer's desired configuration. Creating wireless networks is outside the scope of this article