Upgrading Ubiquiti routers over SSH

In the past, I usually check for ubiquiti router firmware updates via RSS feed, and to apply them I open a reverse SSH tunnel to the web interface and upload the file over this tunnel. This is somewhat inefficient however as you’re uploading firmware over a few additional links in a chain that aren’t really required.

This guide is a simple repurposing of the following help article, albeit somewhat abridged.

To solve this (and speed up the process in general) you can do the full upgrde via SSH.

Firstly, you’ll want to SSH into your router:

ssh username@routerip

The default username and password are both ubnt, but it’s highly recommended you change this.

Then check the currently running firmware version via:

show version

Then upload the image

add system image https://dl.ubnt.com/firmwares/edgemax/v2.0.x/ER-e100.v2.0.1.5174691.tar

Verify the firmware is the correct version for the model of router you’re using.

Then check the image is installed and will be booted from:

show system image

Lastly, reboot the router to apply the image:

reboot

And you’re done.