How to Extract UniFi AP firmware

Make sure you have binwalk installed

sudo apt install binwalk

Download the firmware from Ubiquiti’s website

https://ui.com/download/software/uap-ac-lite

We’ll need to extract the images a couple of times

binwalk -e 6.5.54.bin
cd ./_6.5.54.bin.extracted
binwalk -e 50FEE 
cd _50FEE.extracted/ 
binwalk -e 3C7CC4

The last binwalk will extract the actual file system.

cd _3C7CC4.extracted/cpio-root  

Use Binwalk to extract Ubiquiti Firmware

Download some Ubiquiti firmware

wget https://dl.ubnt.com/firmwares/XC-fw/v8.7.11/WA.v8.7.11.46972.220614.0420.bin

Run binwalk with the -e option to extract the binary file

binwalk -e ./WA.v8.7.11.46972.220614.0420.bin

Binwalk should create a _WA.v8.7.11.46972.220614.0420.bin.extracted directory which we should be able to browse. The main “filesystem” is under squashfs-root.

# ls ./_WA.v8.7.11.46972.220614.0420.bin.extracted/squashfs-root
bin dev etc init lib mnt proc run sbin sys tmp usr var