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UniFi Video UniFi Video

Container

CCTV

UniFi Video is a powerful and flexible, integrated IP video management surveillance system designed to work with Ubiquiti’s UniFi Video Camera product line. UniFi Video has an intuitive, configurable, and feature‑packed user interface with advanced features such as motion detection, auto‑discovery, user‑level security, storage management, reporting, and mobile device support.

Image details

Pulls: 18.6M
Architecture: amd64
Image size: 415 MB
Latest: 3.10.13
User: pducharme
Created: Mar 10, 2015
Updated: 5 years ago
Status: active

Source details

Repo: pducharme/unifi-video-controller
Stars: 201
Forks: 109
Language: Shell
Updated: 3 years ago

Configuration

Type
Container
Platform
linux
Image
pducharme/unifi-video-controller:latest
Ports
1935:1935/tcp7444:7444/tcp7447:7447/tcp6666:6666/tcp7442:7442/tcp7080:7080/tcp7443:7443/tcp7445:7445/tcp7446:7446/tcp
Volumes
/recordings : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/UnifFiVideo/Recordings//config : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/UniFiVideo/
Env vars
PUID=99PGID=1000UMASK=002CONTEXT_PATH=UniFi Video
Restart
unless-stopped

Template by novaspirit

Notes

Template created by Pi-Hosted Series
Check our Github page: https://github.com/pi-hosted/pi-hosted

Official Webpage: https://github.com/pducharme/UniFi-Video-Controller
Official Docker Documentation: https://github.com/pducharme/UniFi-Video-Controller


Standalone Install

Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying UniFi Video

Installation method

Install on Portainer

Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys

  1. Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
  2. Log into your Portainer web UI
  3. Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
  4. Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
  5. Select UniFi Video, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me demo

More install options in our documentation, or see pducharme/unifi-video-controller for app-specific guidance.

unifi-video-controller

This docker image runs the unifi-video controller on Ubuntu. Originally intended for Unraid 6.x, it should run fine anywhere.
Set your local data and videos directories in the docker run command. You can also specify a UID and GID for the daemon to run as.
Restart the docker, visit http://localhost:7080 or http://:7080/ to start the Unifi Video wizard.

Run it

docker run \
        --name unifi-video \
        --cap-add DAC_READ_SEARCH \
        -p 10001:10001 \
        -p 1935:1935 \
        -p 6666:6666 \
        -p 7080:7080 \
        -p 7442:7442 \
        -p 7443:7443 \
        -p 7444:7444 \
        -p 7445:7445 \
        -p 7446:7446 \
        -p 7447:7447 \
        -v <data dir>:/var/lib/unifi-video \
        -v <videos dir>:/var/lib/unifi-video/videos \
        --tmpfs /var/cache/unifi-video \
        -e TZ=America/Los_Angeles \
        -e PUID=99 \
        -e PGID=100 \
        -e CREATE_TMPFS=no \
        -e DEBUG=1 \
        pducharme/unifi-video-controller

Extra instructions for Docker for Windows

To avoid MongoDB errors that cause UniFi Video to hang at the "upgrading" screen on startup, you must create a volume (e.g. UnifiVideoDataVolume) docker volume create UnifiVideoDataVolume and then use that volume for /var/lib/unifi-video by changing this line: -v UnifiVideoDataVolume:/var/lib/unifi-video
You can then specify a different directory for your actual video files, which do not need to be located in a docker volume. E.g. -v D:\Recordings:/var/lib/unifi-video/videos

Serve UniFi Video on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxying unifi-video.example.com to http://UniFi Video:1935

Add this to your Caddyfile

unifi-video.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://UniFi Video:1935
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

  • In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs UniFi Video
  • Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:1935 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

  • Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :1935
  • Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 1935:1935 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

  • Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:1935. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
  • Give it a minute after first deploy, UniFi Video can take a while to initialise.
  • Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 1935

Permission denied on volumes

If the logs show "permission denied", the app can't write to its data folder on the host.

  • Fix the ownership: sudo chown -R 99:1000 /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/UnifFiVideo/Recordings/ (and the same for the other mapped folders)
  • Or set the PUID and PGID variables (defaults 99:1000) to match your own user, found with id $USER

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull pducharme/unifi-video-controller:latest

  • "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists. This template uses latest, so try pinning a specific version instead.
  • "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
  • "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

  • This image supports: amd64
  • Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

  • Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
  • Get the exit code with docker inspect UniFi Video --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
  • Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.

Raise an issue

Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.

A single container

UniFi Video runs as one container, the simplest kind of app here. Just the one image to pull and nothing else wired up alongside it.

The app image

An image is the app packed up ready to go, everything UniFi Video needs bundled into one download. This template pulls pducharme/unifi-video-controller:latest, which Docker fetches once (about 415 MB) and then starts your own copy from.

Where the image comes from

Docker pulls its images from registries, public libraries of ready-built apps. UniFi Video's comes from Docker Hub, published by pducharme.

Version tags

The bit after the colon in the image name is the version tag. Here it's latest, which always points at the newest build, so a redeploy can bump you to a newer release without you asking. Newest right now is 3.10.13. Pin a specific tag if you would rather stay on one version.

Which machines it runs on

Every image is built for particular CPU types. This one ships for amd64, so it runs on regular x86 PCs and servers, though not ARM boards like a Raspberry Pi.

Ports

A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 1935:1935 means it's reachable on port 1935 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. It opens:

  • 1935:1935
  • 7444:7444
  • 7447:7447
  • 6666:6666
  • 7442:7442
  • 7080:7080
  • 7443:7443
  • 7445:7445
  • 7446:7446

Volumes

A volume is where UniFi Video keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:

  • /recordings from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/UnifFiVideo/Recordings/ on the host
  • /config from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/UniFiVideo/ on the host

Environment variables

Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. UniFi Video takes 4 of them, all with defaults you can leave alone or tweak:

  • PUID, defaults to 99
  • PGID, defaults to 1000
  • UMASK, defaults to 002
  • CONTEXT_PATH, defaults to UniFi Video

Restart policy

The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts UniFi Video after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).

Users and permissions

The PUID and PGID settings tell it which user and group to act as on your host. Point them at your own account (find yours with id $USER) so the files it writes into your mounted folders come out owned by you rather than root.

Networking

Nothing custom is set, so UniFi Video sits on Docker's default bridge network: its own private space that reaches the outside world only through the ports it publishes.

Container name

Once it's deployed, Portainer names the container UniFi Video. That's what you'll spot in the containers list and use in commands like docker logs UniFi Video.

Platform

The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.

Portainer app templates

Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set UniFi Video up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying UniFi Video is a click rather than a wall of config.