I have decided to try out UniFi AP for my home WiFi setup and either because of my “consumer-grade” switch etc. or some other reason I just couldn’t get it recognized on my “Controller” … so I had to look. Winning combination was:

1. write down MAC of UniFi AP
2. on my DHCP server track down UniFi AP’s acquired IP
3. SSH into UniFi AP unit (factory defaults creds are ubnt/ubnt)
4. start mca-cli
5. Issue command set-inform http://controllerIP:8080/inform
6. Adopt on controller (simple drop on the map is what worked for me)
7. Reissue command – set-inform http://controllerIP:8080/inform
8. AP is adopted and workable now

As a side-note controller software that runs on Linux required some iptables mashing as well since I was using remote browser:

# firewall-cmd --zone=home --add-port 8080/tcp
# firewall-cmd --zone=home --add-port 8443/tcp
# firewall-cmd --zone=home --add-port 8880/tcp
# firewall-cmd --zone=home --add-port 8843/tcp

This opens up ports only for the current session (runtime), after reboot those changes will be gone and if we need to retain them “–permanent” should be added and commands re-run.