Protecting Your Family in the Digital Era

Getting Started with UniFi Gateway

For many years Ubiquiti UniFi networking has been used by small businesses as a well balanced economical option, and recently UniFi has introduced some family content filtering capabilities that make it a reasonable home wi-fi solution that can do what most parents want, without requiring any ongoing subscription fees.

How-to Video

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SSF - UniFi Gateway.pdf

Setup your UniFi Gateway

  1. Install the UniFi app on your phone
  2. Connect your Internet provider into the Internet port on your UniFi Gateway, and plug in the power
  3. In the UniFi app on your phone, the Gateway should automatically appear in a few minutes, proceed with the setup wizard which will prompt you to create a login and your wi-fi name and password

Enable Content Filtering

To complete the remainder of the steps, you will need to use a desktop computer such as a laptop. Unfortunately UniFi does not yet have all the options in the mobile app.

If you signed in with a UI Account, you can access it via https://unifi.ui.com otherwise you’ll need to access it directly via IP address, which the default is https://192.168.1.1

  1. Go to Settings > Security > Protection
  2. Set Content Filtering to Family
  3. Enable Ad Blocking
  4. Set Encrypted DNS to Auto

Enable Active Detections

  1. Turn on Intrusion Prevention
  2. Select the Default network
  3. Set Detection Mode to Notify and Block
  4. Apply changes

How to Block Apps using UniFi

  1. Go to Settings > Security > Protection
  2. Where you see Simple App Blocking click on Create New
  3. Give the rule a name, select the default network
  4. Select either specific apps that you’d like to block, or entire categories. Remember that you can create multiple rules.
  5. If desired setup a schedule, then click Add

How to Block Internet Access without blocking Local Network

  1. Go to Settings > Security > Firewall
  2. At the bottom click on Create Policy
  3. Give the policy a name, and the source zone should be Internal, the destination zone should be External
  4. Under Source, select specific devices or network that you’d like to apply this policy to.
  5. Ensure Action is set to Block and optionally create a schedule before clicking on Add Policy

Summary

UniFi Gateways are a cost effective way to get wi-fi filtering for your family. There are many features not covered in this guide as UniFi is designed for business use, there are many features most homes are unlikely to use.