A deep dive into the UniFi inform protocol, revealing that device MAC addresses are transmitted in plaintext in the first 14 bytes of every AES-encrypted packet. This discovery enables building a multi-tenant routing proxy for UniFi controllers without decrypting traffic. The author explains how this insight transformed an economically unviable hosted UniFi service (with $1-2 margins per customer) into a viable business by routing multiple customers' devices to shared infrastructure using a ~200-line Go proxy that reads the MAC and forwards packets to the correct backend controller.
Table of contents
What inform doesThe packetReading the MACBuilding the proxyThe other portsInside the encrypted payloadSo what does this get youSort: