[deleted]
The Beauty Of Having A Pi-hole · Den Delimarsky
Submitted 3 weeks ago by fusspilz@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
termaxima@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Misleading statement. It doesn’t block “traffic”, it blocks DNS requests… you don’t know how much traffic this corresponds to.
xavier666@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Correct. The payload of DNS requests is tiny compared to, say requesting a webpage. So there might not be a huge decrease of bandwidth usage reduction. However, having 66.6% less DNS requests is still a win. The router/gateway doesn’t have to work that hard because of the dropped requests.
DScratch@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
You can easily find out. 2 machines (even virtual machines) one set it’s DNS to the PiHole, one not.
Both hit the same sites in the same order. Compare network traffic.
yaroto98@lemmy.org 3 weeks ago
I recommend having two. Otherwise your home internet goes down everytime you update or reboot or it crashes.
lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Interesting…
I’ve a single Pihole instance running on a RPi 4 and have experienced not a single instance of any of the 3 probs you mention. Except, of course, the very few minutes it takes for a reboot which I can schedule and am aware when it’s happening…
🤷♂️
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Literally just had my pihole hard crash this weekend due to a bad update to FTL. Apparently they had a major version upgrade and didn’t bother to read the notes so I had to do a full OS reinstall.
Back up your configs people. Had to dig through documentation to find the sqlite file and then parse through it like some sort of animal.
muhyb@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
I didn’t have a problem on my Pi-hole for a very long time too. OP has that probably because s/he’s using it as a DHCP server as well.
ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve a single Pihole instance running on a RPi 4 and have experienced not a single instance of any of the 3 probs you mention. Except, of course, the very few minutes it takes for a reboot which I can schedule and am aware when it’s happening…
Yeah, I believe it can vary depending on how you host it.
In my experience whenever I brought down the PiHole instance (Docker Compose) I would lose all internet access, which is expected since I’m essentially taking away my devices one and only library, so to mitigate this I spun up PiHole on another device and set that as my secondary (backup) DNS resolver.
This way I can take a container down, update it and all without losing resolution to the internet.
yaroto98@lemmy.org 3 weeks ago
Right, I didn’t have any issues running it on a pi for years too. The problems came when I started messing with things. So, really my advice is to help save people from ideas like mine.
I decided one day to take a bunch of old laptops and create a proxmox cluster out of them. It worked great, but I didn’t have a use for them, I was just playing. So, I decided to retire the pi and put the pihole on the cluster. HA for the win!
I did that and came woke up a few days later to my family complaining that they had no internet. I found the pihole container on a different node and it wouldn’t start. Turns out with proxmox you need separate storage for HA to work. I had assumed that it would be similar to jboss clustering which I’m familiar with, and the container would be on all the nodes and only one actice at a time, with some syncing between nodes. Nope.
What’s worse is the container refused to move back to the origional node AND wouldn’t start. The pi was stored away at this point so I figured it would be easier to just create a new container, but duh, no internet. Turn off dns settings on the router, bam have internet.
Eventually set up the old pi again, and it took me a while to figure out what I had done wrong with proxmox. But while I was figuring it out it was nice to have the backup.
Now I always have two running on different hardware, just in case.
SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Raspberry Pies (is that how you pluralize it?), and especially their SD cards are not the most reliable pieces of hardware. I’ve already had a few die on me.
As for how annoying outages are, I guess that depends on how many people and services you have on your network relying on a functioning DNS. I am running two pihole instances on separate hardware in a keepalived virtual IP setup, with a replicated configuration. Sounds complicated, but it’s really easy.
It’s just nice to be able to reboot or perform maintenance on my pihole knowing it won’t impact DNS, and not having to worry about interrupting my girlfriend streaming her Netflix series or whatever. For example, just a couple of weeks ago I converted my bare-metal pihole installation to a dockerized one, which was a couple of hours of work, without any DNS downtime at all.
shiroininja@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Mine never crashed until the latest major update, now it’s down every time I come home. Am mad
yaroto98@lemmy.org 3 weeks ago
Yep, if you have somewhere to put a docker container or VM you can have redundancy.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Huh? Typically you have a secondary DNS entry on your router
SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Secondary DNS is not for redundancy!
The way secondary DNS works is that a client distributes DNS requests across the primary and secondary DNS servers. So if you have pihole as your primary DNS and, say, 8.8.8.8 as your secondary DNS, you’re sending half of your DNS requests to google. And if your pihole DNS goes down, half of your DNS queries time out.
chaospatterns@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And what do you set that secondary DNS entry to? Operating systems may use both, so you need the secondary to point to a pi hole or else you’re letting ads through randomly.
r_deckard@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I have two piholes - they serve different DHCP ranges (e.g. 1-100 and 101-250), and option 6 references each other.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
honestly don’t find it necessary. raspberry OS basically never needs to be rebooted and if you really need planned maintenance you can just use a normal DNS server til you’re done.
yaroto98@lemmy.org 3 weeks ago
Right, I never said two raspberry pis, I meant two instances. Like one pi and a container run elsewhere.
b3an@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes especially if you’re using DHCP on Pi-hole
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
You specifically shouldn’t run two DHCP servers on the same network. It can cause IP conflicts when two servers assign the same address to different devices. Because the device doesn’t care which DHCP server gave it an address; It just listens to whichever one happens to respond first. And each DHCP server will have its own table of reserved/in-use addresses. And if those tables don’t match, IP conflicts can occur.
Device 1 connects to the network, and requests an IP address. DHCP server 1 checks its table of available addresses, and responds with “your address is 192.168.1.50.” It marks that address as in-use, so it won’t assign it to anything else in the meantime. Device 2 connects to the network, and requests an address. DHCP server 2 checks its table of available addresses (which doesn’t match server 1’s table) and responds with “your address is 192.168.1.50.” Now you have two devices occupying the same IP address, which breaks all kinds of things.
MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Adguard Home has been absolutely rock solid for me, and it offers DoT and DoH servers so you can easily connect devices over those protocols if you want to.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
I just use their free public option. It’s basically as good as pihole. With pihole I still got some ads. I still get some like this.
yaroto98@lemmy.org 3 weeks ago
Great, I recommend having two Adguard Home instances.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
phrasing
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I’m reasonably certain the name was intentional because of the way it could be phrased.
Teppichbrand@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I never hear anyone else talk about dietpi, I install that more than raspbian
AtariDump@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Same
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
DietPi looks interesting, especially for a 0W and my older B+ model that’s just hanging around doing nothing…
Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I’m running mine in Alpine.
WereCat@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Any reason to use this instead of a free NextDNS?
TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Local hosting
bhamlin@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Additionally you have control over it. Sure, you don’t need local since you’re using it in conjunction with the internet. You control it though. You decide entirely what you want to trust and don’t have to delegate that trust as much.
confusedwiseman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I played with a pi-hole setup for a bit. It was nice. I got distracted and set up NextDNS. That’s where I am now.
I like I can easily turn it on/off when I just need to do something and no time to fuss with it.
I’ve got a home server, just not fully setup and going yet, but someday…
Any thoughts on why I might do pi-hole over something like NextDNS? I think the cost is roughly $1/mo.
lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If that’s what you’re happy with and works for you, continue.
Personally, I’m creating an environment in which I’m not dependent on any cloud provider on the front end.
I do have a cloud backup solution for all my data files on the off chance I lose every single on-site backup and closely-held remote backups (read: not in main building but still on property…).
Just trying to get away from reliance on the existence of someone else’s computer/datacenter…
🤷♂️
confusedwiseman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Thanks for sharing the reasons for your approach.
There’s so many ways to accomplish this, such as ad guard or portmaster then add on the drivers for our choices. Finding the balance between privacy and easy of use is tough as it is. Then add in the rest of the family that’s more interested in things “just working”.
Bieren@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Used pihole for years. Loved it. Made the switch to nextdns a year ago. Not going back to pihole. There is nothing wrong with pihole. I got tired of all the time I spent tinkering with it. But, the biggest win for me…nextdns works when I’m off my home network. So I don’t have to deal with the whole vpn back into my home network for dns thing.
Routhinator@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
The beauty is that you can shove Pi in it of course.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Ive I’ve a pi hole running, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the hassle. To me it feels like it breaks more things than it helps.
downhomechunk@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
I took fell into the 7 million sites blocked trap!
Hellmo_Luciferrari@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
What issues do you have?
miridius@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nothing in this article describes it solving any problem that isn’t better solved by an ad blocker. In fact they even admit that you still need an ad blocker anyway. So why bother with the pi hole?
nihilomaster@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Excellent question. You can set the Pi-hole as a default DNS provider on your router which will the set it as a DNS provider for any device connected via DHCP (which in a home network should be basically everything). This means ads will be blocked across all devices and apps instead of just your browser where you installed adblock.
miridius@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Thanks for clarifying. In my case that’s basically zero gain then cos all my devices have ad block in their browsers and I generally either use apps that have no ads or use revanced to remove them
Darkscryber@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That means you can play free games on your phone and have no pop up ads.
You can use Netflix ads tier and crave ads tier and the pi hole blocks them It’s amazing!!
j4yt33@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Does that also work with a VPN?
randombullet@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
I use adguard home in conjunction with NextDNS.
I find adguard a little better in the UI department. Have it in a docker container so it’s a set and forget.
adhocfungus@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Is it possible to do something like this with a newer router? My wireless-G router is finally dying after 20 years, and if I need to upgrade it’d be nice to wrap it all in one.
MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
You can do it with any router by manually configuring devices, but one that lets you advertise the PiHole IP as the DHCP DNS option makes it a lot easier.
2910000@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
OpenWrt with AdGuard Home is one option. Big fan of the former, haven’t used the latter
downhomechunk@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
I haven’t installed it direct on my router. I used to have it running in a container on my little proxmox server (aka old PC repurposed). I really liked the interface.
Then I was practically gifted a really nice Asus router. I flashed merlin-wrt to it and read some guide on how to install a different ad blocker. It’s really good whatever it is. I haven’t had to touch it in months, and I never see an ad.
Toldry@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Getting an error trying to access this:
den.dev/blog/pihole has a security policy called HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), which means that Firefox can only connect to it securely. You can’t add an exception to visit this site.
ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
That was a great read. Really enjoyed that.
dan69@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Anyone have recs for a site that I can pick up simple hardware for this purpose. Maybe not a pi but like a nuc? Or a refurbed.
President@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve been thinking of setting one up for a while, if I have a home server would I be better off hosting it on that or as a separate device? What are the alternatives to a raspberry pi? They’ve shot up in price over the years.
normalexit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you have a server running, I wouldn’t buy more hardware. They have good example documentation for just such a configuration:
docs.pi-hole.net/docker/
If your server already has those ports bound (specifically the DNS port 53) you are going to have to get creative; otherwise it’ll work well!
If not a cheapo pi 3 works, just so long as it is always on.
PoopMonster@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If your using docker and the ports are bound you can just use the network mode host so the container gets it’s own ip. It’s how I have adguard running on my unraid server
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I personally like it on a dedicated Pi simplly because I don’t want DNS to die if i’m doing other server maintenance. the Pi is pretty much set it and forget it.
Brokkr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I put it onto my home server and it is working great. I can’t tell you about all the options, but it was so easy to start another VM for it that I didn’t look at other options too carefully.
adarza@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
if you’ve already got something running 24/7, you could just put it there. it doesn’t need much for resources.
pihole does not need it’s own box. it can run as a container (docker instructions in the official docs) or in a small vm.
i have two small vm running dietpi and used that to install pihole. i fully expected to run a few more things on them, that’s why i chose dietpi–just have never gotten that far (it’s only been like three years now).
curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Definitely dont bother with buying a pi if you’ve got other hardware.
I have one physical (a 3b I had no use for anymore), and two running as containers. The containers do most of the heavy lifting, since they are so much faster than a pi they respond far faster, but the physical is nice for when I take down the clusters for maintenance (or when I lose power, the clusters shut down after about 3 minutes, the pi will keep going for a while on UPS).
themurphy@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I have it on my Pi, and it does the job just fine. But if you have a home server with a little more power, do it there instead.
The last thing you want is your DNS to bottleneck. Never had a problem with my Rasp5, but it all depends on how many other services you try to run.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Setup and run two.
This way if one goes down, the other takes over (also makes updates / maintenance easier)
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 3 weeks ago
I run mine in Docker. Three containers: PiHole which resolves using Unbound, and a VPN container for Unbound.
That being said, if you routinely restart that device, or it crashes because of something else you are doing, it gets annoying real quick.
A cheap mini-PC running a low wattage n150 is a good thing to have for essential services in docker.
JK_Flip_Flop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I run mine on a Intel N100 based mini PC from Beelink running Proxmox. It’s just about the only thing it does at the moment so I’ve had no concerns about bottlenecking.
It’s much more powerful than a pi and costs a not too dissimilar amount to one after you factor in a case, storage, power supply.
swampdownloader@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I run my main pihole on a pi and the backup on a NUC mini pc. Le Potato is a cheap pi alternative.