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Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

brianchristner.io

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Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#161

Post by afraca »

DistractionRect wrote: post #34
0daystock wrote: post #2

Won't be long now until IoT and other crap-ware devices catch on to this trend and start hard-coding DNS servers in code, or worse, using DNS encryption to avoid this sort of routine blocking by end-users. I wonder how people are thinking about solving this problem.

I solve this with a DNS based firewall. Essentially it's just DNS filtering on steriods. You start with an empty (or preseeded) ipset, and a firewall rule that says to reject/drop all outbound traffic if the destination isn't in the ipset. Dnsmasq is setup as the default dns provider in DHCP, and it's setup to add all resolved IPs to the ipset (with an expiration so stale entries get removed). Then it's just DNS filt…

This is very very similar to something developed by SIDN labs called "DNS Resolution Required", you can read the blog post here:

https://www.sidnlabs.nl/en/news-and-blogs/dns-resolution-req...

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#162

Post by pmoriarty »

neurostimulant wrote: post #92
prometheus1909 wrote: post #35

I keep seeing posts about Pi Holes and it looks good, but I have previously dealt with ads by appending their delivering sites to my /etc/hosts, i.e. 0.0.0.0 trashsite1.com 0.0.0.0 trashsite2.com The only downside I see is that my approach is not network-wide. Any other reasons I should reconsider?

Not sure about now, but before I'm using pihole, I was using hosts file to block ads and found a significant increase in network latency. Turns out the huge hosts file significantly increased DNS lookup time in my system (>1 seconds).

"I was using hosts file to block ads and found a significant increase in network latency"

I ran in to a similar issue on Windows, which is described here: [1]

After following that article's suggestion to disable the Windows "DNS Client" service name resolution returned to normal.

[1] - https://tinyapps.org/blog/201809300700_large_hosts_file.html

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#163

Post by godelski »

datfrojo wrote: post #50
godelski wrote: post #46

Every time I've tried pihole it has failed on services like YouTube. Can someone explain this to me and how I solve it? I know it's not just me, it even happened to Linus Tech Tips but I constantly hear responses "works for me" which are unhelpful. If ublock works fine, why can't pihole? I'm actually interested in a technical answer.

Pihole only works if ads are served from a distinct domain name from content. This works in most cases but YouTube serves ads and content from the same place so pihole can’t prevent. As uBlock works client side it does not face this limitation

So wouldn't there be a way to intercept the data and apply the same blocking that uBlock does and then resend it? I know it would have a delay, but that'd probably be worth it to me tbh.

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#164

Post by dicknuckle »

pigbearpig wrote: post #152
jrmg wrote: post #18

Like any other project I run everything in a Docker container, and this project should be no different. What is the advantage of this in this case?

The real advantage is another layer of complexity, so you can write a blog post about running PiHole on a home network, which done by a billion other people (conservative estimate).

It's much simpler. A lot less arcane knowledge is needed to get something running, and even less to clean it up completely if you need to delete it or start over for whatever reason.

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#165

Post by stavros »

ctur wrote: post #106

For those not wanting the overhead of running a service on your network, NextDNS sells what is basically managed pihole. I’ve used it for about a year and have been very happy. It also lets you use it on mobile devices for when you aren’t on your home network.

Same, and I love the pricing. 20 €/yr seems very reasonable for such a service, I'm happy to be paying for it.

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#166

Post by rovr138 »

jeffkeen wrote: post #158
ferminaut wrote: post #29

I know some folks are anti Ubiquiti Unifi on here, but you can run pihole (along with a bunch of other stuff) right on a UDM/UDM-Pro. IMO it makes the most sense to run this on the router, and you can run it in a docker container. If you're looking for a fun hour or two project, check out: https://github.com/boostchicken-dev/udm-utilities/tree/maste...

I'm afraid to ask, but why are people anti ubiquity? I freaking love my udm-pro and am waiting for their cams to come back in stock so I can ditch my nests.

They tried to cover a breach. They sued Krebs for publishing on it.

There have been other issues too.

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#167

Post by galleywest200 »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #147

Obviously, people whose products rely on those ads and telemetry, won't be happy and will try to retaliate, for example, by refusing you service. This frequently happens because of my usage of VPNs and ublock. In that case I have an option to quickly turn vpn/ublock off for that specific web site or service. In your case it's not so easy.

In the Pihole interface you have the option to disable the blocking for a few minutes at a time when you absolutely must get somewhere.

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#168

Post by evad3r »

TheBlerch wrote: post #148

I remember seeing an online service that provides the functionality of Pi Hole, blocking ads, protecting privacy and significantly speeding up browsing. Anyone familiar with it? If you’ve tried it, did you like it?

Looks like it was commented on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31552552

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#169

Post by oceanswave »

pcl wrote: post #37
ferminaut wrote: post #29

I know some folks are anti Ubiquiti Unifi on here, but you can run pihole (along with a bunch of other stuff) right on a UDM/UDM-Pro. IMO it makes the most sense to run this on the router, and you can run it in a docker container. If you're looking for a fun hour or two project, check out: https://github.com/boostchicken-dev/udm-utilities/tree/maste...

I run a PiHole and a Tailscale exit node on my Unifi routers (previous generation). The Tailscale exit node lets me do both site-to-site VPNs and site-specific egress. The one thing keeping me from site network nirvana is that I haven't quite figured out how to set up a wifi network on the Ubiquiti device that routes all traffic through a given other exit node, however. Someday!

Does setting the gateway address on the wifi network to be your tailscale exit node ip work?

Re: Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

#170

Post by jaimex2 »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #147

Obviously, people whose products rely on those ads and telemetry, won't be happy and will try to retaliate, for example, by refusing you service. This frequently happens because of my usage of VPNs and ublock. In that case I have an option to quickly turn vpn/ublock off for that specific web site or service. In your case it's not so easy.

Given Apple is doing this on their products its a choice they'll have to make. They either put up with it or lose active users along with word of mouth.
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