Everyone Should Own a Pi-Hole

[Painthappy]

Just take a look at this photograph



Okay, no really... Here are the stats:



What does this mean you ask?

My network is trying to ping someone else's server all night long to the point even Lionel Richie would be jealous. Most of the network traffic is from Netflix oddly enough so I looked into it. Apparently Netflix pays smart TV companies for their logs and traffic so they know what you're watching. Sometimes your smart TV's collect more than that!

I mean, we all know about it and have heard about it, just we don't see it. If companies hired a person to just follow your around all day and look through your windows, I would like to think most folks would have a problem with that, but that's what they're doing, just you can't see it, so you don't get angry at it.

What is a Pi-Hole?

Pi-Holes are network wide ad and tracking blockers. It acts as your DNS server. You ask for mcarterbrown.com and the pihole says - sure, I'll get that. But let's say I had some weird ad trackers on here, (I don't) say trackyoufondly.ads.whatever - That would go to the pihole, it would see it and just say: nope. Not sending that traffic. It just goes into a black hole. Hence the name. You get to see mcarterbrown.com, and nothing else gets sent.

In a sense, this will block all third party ads and trackers. Those "free" phone games with all the ads? Yeah, no more ads. The webpages with tons of ads? No more ads. Also no hidden trackers trying to find out what to sell you next.

How Do I Get a Pi-Hole?

You make one of course!

First you need a Raspberry Pi. You don't need a fancy one, just get an older Raspberry Pi 2 or 3. You'll need a micro SD card and speed does matter here. Get a 16gb card rated at 10 for speed.

Download the Rapberry Pi Imager here: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

--> Choose your model, say Raspberry Pi 2, Click Next, Choose Rapberry PI OS (Other), click next, Choose Raspberry Pi OS Lite.

That will install it onto your Micro SD card. You don't need anything more since this will not be for desktop use. Just running attached to your router.

Done? Great.

Stick the SD card into your Raspberry Pi and attach an ethernet cable from the back of your router into the Raspberry Pi, and plug in the Pi. Let it boot up.

Log into your Router

Your router should be 192.168.1.1
Your username and password will probably be on the router, or it will allow you to set it up. Do that. Log in. You should now be able to see "Connected Devices"


From here you can SSH into your Raspberry Pi and install Pi-Hole.

*WARNING* Geeky Stuff Ahead

SSH (you can download an SSH client such at Putty) or use Terminal if you have a mac - into your Pi using: ssh 192.168.1.253
which is the ip address we found by looking on our router. Use the password you set up on installation.

To make it so the IP address doesn't change, enter this code:

sudo nmcli connection modify "Wired connection 1" \
ipv4.method manual \
ipv4.addresses 192.168.1.253/24 \
ipv4.gateway 192.168.1.1 \
ipv4.dns "192.168.1.1"

Once done, restart it by entering

sudo nmcli connection down "Wired connection 1"
sudo nmcli connection up "Wired connection 1"

Update your Raspberry Pi to the latest and greatest

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
​

Now you install the Pi-Hole

sudo curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
​

Once that is done, I usually remove my pi-hole password so I can just log into the admin screen and view it without trouble. It's behind my router so no one can log into it unless they're on my network. So I then do:

sudo pihole setpassword

and just hit enter for no password.

Now I can view my admin screen and dashboard at: 192.168.1.253/admin - and you'll see the screen I posted as the first image. Ok, not that image, the second image.

Here are the block lists I use:

https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/hagezi/d...dblock/pro.txt – Hagezi Pro
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/hagezi/d...ock/dyndns.txt – DNS Blocklist
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/hagezi/d...tif.medium.txt – Hagezi Medium
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/hagezi/d...k/popupads.txt – Popups
https://media.githubusercontent.com/...s/tracking.txt - Tracking
https://perflyst.github.io/PiHoleBlo...martTV-AGH.txt – Smart TV Block 2

Be sure to update your pihole after adding new lists. You can do that at the admin screen or via ssh by typing: sudo pihole -g

Last But Not Least!!

You now need to point your router to your pihole as a DNS server. Remember how we logged into the router? Now do that and look for the advanced section and DNS.

Mine is here:



Change your Primary DNS to your Pi-hole IP Address.

Change your Secondary DNS to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8

Those are legitimate DNS hosts and you'll what it to those as a back up in case your pihole fails. You can see I did not do that, I'm all in as I made a few more modifications after all this that is way beyond the scope of this post.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but for the tinkerers here, this is the blue print. If you really really just want one, send me a PM and I have some extras as I've been making them for the guys around here, but this isn't a for sale post, this is strictly informational and how-to do it yourself. Ask any questions, happy to help, but yeah, it really is amazing how much traffic goes through your network all night and all day long. So far I've been running one for a few weeks and I have not seen a single downside to it.

[scottieb]

Another tool to fight all the things thrown at us that we don't want thrown at us. I appreciate the blueprint. Thank you.

[Calvin]

Been using one for almost 2 years. Its a great tool.

[Reflex0283]

Might have to dig my pi out of my basement sometime

[RAZRBAKK]

I support this message.

Also 66% is INSANE painthappy.

[loveaboveall]

These are great. Have one too.

Also another great, much easier, tool is NextDNS.io. Just change your DNS on your router or device you want to protect. Can make an account and control traffic.

[tyronejk]

Neat, I haven't heard of this. I'll have to give it a try.

[The Hobbit]

Well shit now I want pi to shovel a pi hole in.

[Maxwell]

I would never figure this out on my own so II appreciate the write up even I can follow and do.

[tyronejk]

I've been running one for about 4 years and it's been super reliable. No complaints here. I'm glad to see we have many like-minded folks on MCB.

Another benefit that sometimes gets missed is that your web browsing/some internet activity gets faster than before, not slower, since you avoid downloading ads/trackers altogether.

[Painthappy]

I support this message.

Also 66% is INSANE painthappy.

We also have different lists. I have 650,000+ on my block list and you have under 100k. I posted my lists that I use in the first post if you want to have a look at them.

[RhoXi]

I set up my old gaming PC to do this with Ubuntu server running PI-Hole and it works well. I also host a Minecraft server on it just for kicks. I took out the gpu to save a bit on power too. I get the most blocks from my work iphone and the Roku.

[StaticShocked]

I have been wanting to make one for a long time and now is as good as any. Thanks for the great writeup! I will get a pi on the way and report back!

[RAZRBAKK]

We also have different lists. I have 650,000+ on my block list and you have under 100k. I posted my lists that I use in the first post if you want to have a look at them.

I actually updated mine shortly after because I realized I was running an older config. Added a couple of yours to see how they do.

[nicad]

Anyone else find Pi's unreliable due to SSD corruption? Seems to never fail. Been building Pi projects for many years, from custom UI's to car head units to HA and Pi Holes, and they all eventually crap out from SSD file corruption. When current PH and HA dies I'm going SBC. Tried almost all the hardening tricks but still....

[The Hobbit]

What would the best place to purchase a pi be for non techie?

[RAZRBAKK]

I buy from pishop in Canada, but I believe Microcenter sells them if you want a physical store.

So not over pay and buy the top of the line ones. A 2gb Pi5 or even a 3gb Pi4 is plenty of power for this application.

Make sure you get an adequate power supply, the official ones are very good.