creating and broadcasting our first freelynk wifi ssid
In this section we'll go through how to configure a Unifi access point to broadcast our free WiFi networks for users to find and use.
1. From the Unifi controller dashboard, select the settings button in the lower left hand corner.
2. From here, click the user groups button on the left hand column. Then select the "create new user group" button under the default user group.
3. Name the user group. This name is for your records mostly. This entire user group we're creating can represent a single access point device, or many. You can make as many user groups as you want. Save your settings then move on to the Wireless Networks tab in the left side bar.
4. From the Wireless Networks screen, click the plus symbol at the top right corner of the Wireless Networks screen. This button will allow us to create a wireless networks group, which we will need to make wireless networks for users to connect to.
5. This is where you will name the network group. This name will only seen by you and anyone working in your Unifi controller, so you're open to name it whatever you like.
6. Now that we have our Wireless Network group, lets create a wireless network instead of that group by pressing the create new wireless network button as shown above.
7. This is the point which we are actually creating the wireless network id our free internet users will be seeing. The name is the actual WiFi name, by using "FreeLynk" or something like "Free WiFi" you're going to draw the most attention and user base to your network. Make sure the network is enabled, has open security and has guest policies applied. We use VLAN 20 which is our default FreeLynk VLAN (As shown in the router and switch tutorial) and set the user group to FreeLynk. Click the green save button at the bottom when you're ready.
Note: By VLANing networks you're increasing the barriers between areas of your network. This is a good thing when trying to isolate and protect your free internet users as much as possible.
8. Move out to the devices screen by clicking our devices symbol in the left side bar. Then click on the device we want to edit. In this case, we want to apply the wireless network settings to the SolarLynk Mark V. Start by clicking on it.
9. Once clicked the properties menu will display. Click the configuration tab, then the WLANs menu. Under WLAN group, select the group we just selected under both the 2G and 5G menus. You can change them to different groups, but in this same we will leave them as the same. Click Queue Changes at the bottom.
10. Press apply changes to trigger the access point to provision with the new settings we've selected.
11. Shortly after provisioning your access point will return to the CONNECTED status and be ready to accept users of our WiFi network!