Live data from Hacker News

Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

brianchristner.io

181–190 of 249 posts

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

#181
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already happening. The likes of Google Home et al already hardcode their own servers. I noticed that no DNS requests were being made through my Pi Hole, so when I looked, it turned out their DNS servers were hardcoded. However, I'm more worried about when they start hardcoding DoH servers.

On my router I redirect all outbound port 53 traffic not coming from my local recursive DNS server to my local recursive DNS server. The next step in the arms race is DoH. Afaik no one has a generic answer to that beyond "treat devices behaving hostilely as hostile".

This is what I do, too. Simple and effective.

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

#182
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.

> ctur - 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.

The overhead is very minuscule.. I always forget that I'm using it...

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Krebs had inaccurate info at the time. The breach was faked by an employee who was part of the investigation team.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/12/ubiquiti-developer-charg...

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

#184

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.

Stupid bugs caused me to move away from them, conveniently only days before the breach became public.

Bug #1 was when they stopped supporting 32-character SSIDs, so my main network called "Smart Meter Surveillance Network" suddenly was no longer editable. Switching routing platforms is easier than setting up all my devices again.

Bug #2 was the one I wrote up here on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/UNIFI/comments/ghs4bg/arp_for_clien...), which was where ARPing for a client on a meshed wireless AP, from the wired network, would fail. If the client was on a non-meshed AP, it worked.

I expect better from my network, so I dumped Unifi and went to OPNsense on a fanless PC.

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

#185

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.

I had six unifi protect cameras for over a year until I replaced them all. Rain at night means motion notifications every 30 seconds, bugs at night, same thing. Unifi cameras are terrible for outdoor applications.

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

#187
post #82
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be no cost. Which game will constantly use DNS to resolve addresses after being launched?

I caught a bug related to this in Project Zomboid in an early multiplayer version. Often when someone joined a server there would be a tiny bit of lag for all of the users. I figured out the server was using a java method that indirectly was doing a blocking DNS lookup. I think it was reverse DNS but I forget which method it actually was, and if it was blocking the main thread or just the networking thread. (PiHole s…

Very likely URL.equals()

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

#188
Pi-Hole is brilliant. I set up[1] one few years back and used for over a year. Here are the issues;

- When I'm away from home and traveling, if something goes wrong, the Pi-Hole is usually the single source of that error, and is hard to solve by talking to my wife to walkthrough the settings.

- A few websites (India in my case), mostly government ones, do not work when Ads are blocked. Try paying LIC Premium or even login to LIC of India with your DNS modified, Ads Blocked!

- Wife want ads in some of her apps, "What did you do to my Ads!"

Since then, the family was on NextDNS[2] for almost two years - premium member hitting million+ request a month from a 4-member family. With NextDNS slow to update when macOS changes the way they deal with Private Relay, I stumbled on AdGuard's DNS[3] (in beta now). I already bought the lifetime (family) AdGuard license sometime back. So, I tried it and am on it now.

With the current setup, the last-mile choices of blocking ads or not blocking (for some website) is at the client (wife, daughter, and other devices). This works good so far -- everyone have a choice without being totally locked down. I have also taught my 13-year old daughter to keep a watch on Little Snitch.

Here is the typical settings for all of the devices in our family, which works well when inside the home or outside.

Apple's Private Relay (ON) > AdGuard with DNS Routing (OFF/ON) > (Optional VPN when needed) > Balanced/Bonded common ROUTER with minimal locked down settings > All of the ISP's entry routers.

Nonetheless, I've been meaning to tinker so I can have Pi-Hole sitting between our family and the Internet but optionally circumventable easily -- perhaps a big Amber Button which even my 5-year old can press and go into the Internet momentarily.

Edit: I forgot to add my thinking/concept/philosophy in all of this -- We should be able to walk out from most entrapments/situations/entities with minimal or no change needed.

1. https://brajeshwar.com/2019/pi-hole-blocking-ads-at-home/

2. https://nextdns.io

3. https://adguard-dns.io/

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

#189
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried to cover a breach. They sued Krebs for publishing on it. There have been other issues too.

Krebs had inaccurate info at the time. The breach was faked by an employee who was part of the investigation team. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/12/ubiquiti-developer-charg...

Yeah, Krebs published this updated take:

"On Wednesday, a former Ubiquiti developer was arrested and charged with stealing data and trying to extort his employer while pretending to be a whistleblower.

"Federal prosecutors say Nickolas Sharp, a senior developer at Ubiquiti, actually caused the “breach” that forced Ubiquiti to disclose a cybersecurity incident in January."

Post reply on HN