IPTV on UniFi OS

This document describes how to set up IPTV on UniFi routing devices based on UniFi OS, such as the UniFi Dream Machine (UDM) or the UniFi Dream Router (UDR). These instructions have been tested with the IPTV network from KPN (ISP in the Netherlands). However, the general approach should be applicable for other ISPs as well.

For getting IPTV to work on the legacy UniFi Security Gateway, please refer to the following guide.

Global Design
Prerequisites
Setting up Internet Connection
Configuring Internal LAN
Configuring Helper Tool
Troubleshooting and Known Issues

Global Design

        Fiber
          |
    +----------+
    | FTTH NTU |
    +----------+
          |
      VLAN4 - IPTV
      VLAN6 - Internet
          |
      +--------+
      | Router |  - Ubiquiti UniFi device
      +--------+
          |
         LAN
          |
      +--------+
      | Switch |  - Ubiquiti UniFi Switch (Optional)
      +--------+
       |  |  |
       |  |  +-----------------------------+
       |  |                                |
       |  +-----------------+              |
       |                    |              |
+--------------+       +---------+      +-----+
| IPTV Decoder |       | WiFi AP |      | ... |
+--------------+       +---------+      +-----+
  - KPN IPTV
  - Netflix

Prerequisites

Make sure you check the following prerequisites before trying the other steps:

The kernel on your UniFi device must support multicast routing in order to support IPTV:
- UniFi Dream Machine (Pro): Multicast routing is supported natively in the stock kernel since firmware version 1.11. If you for some reason cannot use firmware v1.11+, see udm-kernel for a kernel that supports multicast routing for older firmware versions of the UDM/P.
- UniFi Dream Machine SE: You need firmware version 2.3.7+ for multicast routing support.
- UniFi Dream Router: Multicast routing is supported by the default firmware.
The switches in-between the IPTV decoder and the UniFi device should have IGMP snooping enabled. They do not need to be from Ubiquiti necessarily.
The FTTP NTU (or any other type of modem) of your ISP must be connected to one of the WAN ports of your UniFi device.

Setting up Internet Connection

The first step is to set up your internet connection to your ISP with the UniFi device acting as modem, instead of some intermediate device. These steps might differ per ISP, so please check the requirements for your ISP.

Below, we describe the steps for KPN. Feel free to update this document with the steps necessary for your provider.

KPN

If you are a customer of KPN, you can set up the WAN connection as follows:

In your UniFi Dashboard, go to Settings > Internet.
Select the WAN port that is connected to the FTTP NTU.
Enable VLAN ID and set it to 6 for KPN.
Set IPv4 Connection to PPPoE.
For KPN, Username should be set to internet.
For KPN, Password should be set to internet.

Configuring Internal LAN

To operate correctly, the IPTV decoders on the internal LAN possibly require additional DHCP options. You can add these DHCP options as follows:

In your UniFi Dashboard, go to Settings > Networks.
Select the LAN network on which IPTV will be used. We recommend creating a separate LAN network for IPTV traffic if possible in order to reduce interference of other devices on the network.
Enable Advanced Configuration > IGMP Snooping, so IPTV traffic is only sent to devices that should receive it.
Go to DHCP > Custom DHCP Option and add the following options:

Name Code Type Value

IPTV-Class 60 Text IPTV_RG

Name	Code	Type	Value
IPTV-Class	60	Text	IPTV_RG

Configuring Helper Tool

Next, we will use the udm-iptv package to get IPTV working on your LAN. This package uses igmpproxy to route multicast IPTV traffic between WAN and LAN.

Installation

SSH into your machine and execute the commands below in UniFi OS (not in UbiOS).

sh -c "$(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fabianishere/udm-iptv/master/install.sh -sSf)"

This script will install the udm-iptv package onto your device. The installation process supports various pre-defined configuration profiles for popular IPTV providers. Below is a list of supported IPTV providers:

Provider	Country	Supported
KPN	NL	Yes
XS4ALL	NL	Yes
Tweak	NL	Yes
Solcon	NL	Yes
Telekom	DE	Manual configuration necessary
MagentaTV	DE	Manual configuration necessary
Swisscom	CH	Yes
Init7	CH	Yes
MEO	PT	Yes
BT	GB	Yes
Vivo SP	BR	Yes - Tested with GPON TP-Link TX-6610
Vivo GVT	BR	Yes - Manual configuration necessary
Telenor	NO	Yes
PostTV	LU	Manual configuration necessary

If your ISP is not supported, you may select the Custom profile, which allows you manually configure the package to your needs. We appreciate if you share the configuration so others can also benefit. See the profiles directory for examples of existing configuration profiles.

The package installs a service that is started during the boot process of your UniFi device and that will set up the applications necessary to route IPTV traffic. After installation, the service is automatically started.

If you experience any issues while setting up the service, please visit the Troubleshooting section.

Ensuring Installation across Firmware Updates

To ensure your installation remains persistent across firmware updates, you may need to perform some manual steps which are described below.

Even so, please remember to make a backup of your configuration before a firmware update. Changes in Ubiquiti's future firmware (flashing process) might potentially cause your configuration to be lost.

UniFi Dream Machine (Pro)

Custom packages on the UniFi Dream Machine (Pro) are re-installed after a firmware updates, but custom configuration is lost. To ensure your configuration remains persistent, move the configuration file to a persistent location and create a symlink:

mv /etc/udm-iptv.conf /mnt/persistent
ln -sf /mnt/persistent/udm-iptv.conf /etc/udm-iptv.conf

Make sure to re-create the symlink after a firmware upgrade.

UniFi Dream Machine SE and UniFi Dream Router

It is currently not possible to persist the installation across firmware updates (see #120). Your configuration should remain, so only re-installation is necessary.

Configuration

You can modify the configuration of the service interactively using dpkg-reconfigure -p medium udm-iptv. See below for a reference of the available options to configure:

Environmental Variable	Description	Default
IPTV_WAN_INTERFACE	Interface on which IPTV traffic enters the router	eth8 (on UDM Pro) or eth4 (on UDM)
IPTV_WAN_RANGES	IP ranges from which the IPTV traffic originates (separated by spaces)	213.75.0.0/16 217.166.0.0/16
IPTV_WAN_VLAN	ID of VLAN which carries IPTV traffic (use 0 if no VLAN is used)	4
IPTV_WAN_DHCP	Boolean to indicate whether DHCP is enabled on the IPTV WAN (VLAN) interface	true
IPTV_WAN_DHCP_OPTIONS	DHCP options to send when requesting an IP address	-O staticroutes -V IPTV_RG
IPTV_WAN_STATIC_IP	Static IP address to assign to the IPTV WAN (VLAN) interface (if DHCP is disabled)
IPTV_WAN_MAC	Custom MAC address to assign to the IPTV WAN VLAN interface
IPTV_LAN_INTERFACES	Interfaces on which IPTV should be made available	br0
IPTV_IGMPPROXY_DEBUG	Enable debugging for igmpproxy	false

The configuration is written to /etc/udm-iptv.conf (within UniFi OS).

Upgrading

To upgrade udm-iptv, please re-run the installation script.

Removal

To fully remove an udm-iptv installation from your UniFi device, run the follow command:

apt remove dialog igmpproxy udm-iptv

In order to remove all configuration files as well, run the following command:

apt purge dialog igmpproxy udm-iptv

Troubleshooting

Below is a non-exhaustive list of issues that might occur while getting IPTV to run on your UniFi device, as well as troubleshooting steps. Please check these instructions before opening a discussion.

Check if your IPTV receiver is on the right VLAN
Your IPTV receiver might not be VLAN to which the IPTV traffic is forwarded.
Check if IPTV traffic is forwarded to the right VLAN
Make sure that you have configured IPTV_LAN_INTERFACES correctly to forward to right interfaces (e.g., br4 for VLAN 4).
Check if your issue has been reported already
Use the GitHub search functionality to check if your issue has already been reported before.

Getting Help or Reporting an Issue

If your issues persist, you may seek help on our Discussions page. Please keep GitHub Issues only for bugs or feature requests related to the project (no configuration-related issues).

When opening a discussion or reporting an issue, please share the name of your ISP as well as the diagnostics reported by our diagnostic tool:

udm-iptv-diag

Contributing

Questions, suggestions and contributions are welcome and appreciated! You can contribute in various meaningful ways:

Report a bug through GitHub issues.
Contribute improvements to the documentation (e.g., configuration for other ISPs).
Help answer questions on our Discussions page.

License

The code is released under the GPLv2 license. See COPYING.txt.

lmik / udm-iptv