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[-] President@sh.itjust.works 39 points 1 month 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 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If you have a server running, I wouldn't buy more hardware. They have good example documentation for just such a configuration:

https://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!

Worst case, a cheapo pi 3 will do the job. At one point I had it running on a pi zero, so hardware requirements are pretty low.

[-] PoopMonster@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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

edit: Sorry I mixed up the details as @starkzarn@infosec.pub pointed out. It's a macvlan configuration. My intention was to point out it's possible. Here's some documentation https://docs.docker.com/engine/network/drivers/macvlan/

[-] normalexit@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Thanks, PoopMonster, that's a good tip!

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[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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.

But i guerss you might as well try it on your server first and you can always buy a Pi if you find it to be too much of a pain.

[-] Brokkr@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month 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 8 points 1 month 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 7 points 1 month 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 points 1 month 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.

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[-] Donut@piefed.social 31 points 1 month ago

Don't fall for the trap that they recommend an expensive Pi 5: I am running Pi-hole on a Pi 2 but you can basically run this on obsolete hardware, whether that's a Pi or a PC/laptop

[-] mrnarwall@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Can confirm. I have 10 year old pi2 that is dedicated to pi hole and even that is not utilizing all of its 1gb of memory

[-] Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago

I run mine on a PI 0. Also use it as a samba disk partition for transferring files.

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[-] yaroto98@lemmy.org 30 points 1 month ago

I recommend having two. Otherwise your home internet goes down everytime you update or reboot or it crashes.

[-] lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Interesting... And this is not a criticism, simply an observation...

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 12 points 1 month 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.

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[-] muhyb@programming.dev 6 points 1 month 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.

[-] lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Certainly possible though not so versed in Pihole capabilities that I can imagine how that happens...

My DHCP is handled by an EdgerouterX...

My Pihole is limited to DNS only.

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[-] shiroininja@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Mine never crashed until the latest major update, now it’s down every time I come home. Am mad

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[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month 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.

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[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 6 points 1 month ago

Huh? Typically you have a secondary DNS entry on your router

[-] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 unfiltered. And if your pihole DNS goes down, half of your DNS queries time out.

The way to have redundancy with DNS is with a standby server that takes over the IP of the primary server if it goes down. You can do this with keepalived.

[-] chaospatterns@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month 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.

[-] Amir@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago
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[-] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 month ago
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[-] confusedwiseman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 month 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 14 points 1 month 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...

🤷‍♂️

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[-] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Raspberry Pi 1b > DietPi > Pi-hole > Unbound <3

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[-] randombullet@programming.dev 6 points 1 month 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.

[-] Routhinator@startrek.website 6 points 1 month ago

The beauty is that you can shove Pi in it of course.

[-] Toldry@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Getting an error trying to access this:

https://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.

[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago

Works for me

[-] myreel@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago

Perhaps it's blocked for you.

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[-] adhocfungus@midwest.social 5 points 1 month 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 6 points 1 month 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 4 points 1 month ago

OpenWrt with AdGuard Home is one option. Big fan of the former, haven't used the latter

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[-] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month 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.

[-] warm@kbin.earth 9 points 1 month ago

If it's websites that are breaking, maybe you are using some really aggressive blocklist. Also, you can use multiple blocklists and assign clients to them however you please.

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this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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