Replacing My ISP Router with a UniFi Cloud Gateway Max

Summary

Replacing my ISP router with a UniFi Cloud Gateway Max 15 May 2026 So I recently upgraded my home internet to full fibre, after which I also decided to upgrade my router as there were some things I wanted to do with my network that my ISP-provided router wasn't capable of. I replaced my mesh system with a UniFi one a couple years ago, so it made sense to stick with the UniFi brand and go with one of their routers, so £250 later, I had a Cloud Gateway Max on its way to me. I figured this would be a straightforward process, but my god was I wrong! First attempt So I took a backup of my Cloud Key config and figured I could unplug that, plug in the Cloud Gateway, restore the config and be done. I assumed there would be a couple things I needed to tweak, but for the most part, it would be a simple 10 minute job. Fuck. No. You see, dear reader, in order to configure the Cloud Gateway you need an internet connection. No internet connection, no configuration. So by unplugging my ISP router -thus killing the internet to my entire house - I couldn't even get to the point where I could enter my ISP credentials, let alone configure the bloody thing. Without the internet connection all I could configure was the IP and MAC of the router. Absolutely pointless! There may be a way of doing this without an internet connection, but I couldn't find it and it certainly wasn't obvious. Attempt #2 So I had to reconnect my old rig - the ISP router, the Cloud Key, and access points. Then I hung the Cloud Gateway off the ISP router so it could get an internet connection. Luckily this worked and I was finally able to configure the thing. After which I disconnected the Cloud Key, assuming the access points would all fail over to the Cloud Gateway when I restored the config backup from the Cloud Key. Nope! You see, the config back from the Cloud Key is a completely different file format (*.unifi) to what the Cloud Gateway was expecting (*.unf). What the actual fuck! Attempt #3 Soooooo back onli...