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Setting up a Pi Hole made my home network faster

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

#241

Post by charwalker »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #59
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?

Any special setup amongst your network takes excess work to maintain. In the case of Pihole, I gave up on maintaining it because I was running it on a Raspberry Pi, and found that it was annoyingly hard to keep a Pi running stable for a long period of time. Had I a convenient way to set it up in a Docker container, it would've been better. Of course, since I don't run anything in Docker at home, that would also const…

Yeah, docker simplifies deployment and maintenance/rebuild time. I've stuck to fairly clean/default setups on any computer I use to keep rebuild time down or at least try to use the built in/simple tools of whatever OS I'm using and Docker is the perfect version of that for small services. I say all this of course while running pihole on a pi4 that also serves DHCP so I don't have to mess with it much...

I used to run pihole on various Linux distros I was testing for home server stuff. It used to be that some distros needed a few packages added to support pihole properly but nowadays the app itself is more streamlined and/or most common distros include the minimum components. I think pihole did focus on streamlining to enable easier docker support which is where I should be putting my install whenever I get back to messing with the homelab. I've been working in windows systems for work so everything is currently Win Server based which plex doesn't seem happy with but is easier than running the whole thing as VMs on my older hardware.

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

#242

Post by ocdtrekkie »

charwalker wrote: post #241
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any special setup amongst your network takes excess work to maintain. In the case of Pihole, I gave up on maintaining it because I was running it on a Raspberry Pi, and found that it was annoyingly hard to keep a Pi running stable for a long period of time. Had I a convenient way to set it up in a Docker container, it would've been better. Of course, since I don't run anything in Docker at home, that would also const…

Yeah, docker simplifies deployment and maintenance/rebuild time. I've stuck to fairly clean/default setups on any computer I use to keep rebuild time down or at least try to use the built in/simple tools of whatever OS I'm using and Docker is the perfect version of that for small services. I say all this of course while running pihole on a pi4 that also serves DHCP so I don't have to mess with it much... I used to ru…

Yeah, I'm more comfortable in the Windows space personally. My Sandstorm server is Linux but I don't really want to try running something else side by side with it. It looks like a Linux container on a Windows Server is technically possible, but it looks nontrivial enough that I am not sure I want to do it on my domain controller. :D

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

#243

Post by BizarroLand »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #57
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...

What sort of cost is associated with pihole, with respect mostly to very latency sensitive things like competitive gaming. Is it problematic?

I run it on my NAS computer in a ubuntu server vm. It was 20 minutes to set that up and another 5 to install and point my router's DNS to it. Maintenance is a monthly login, and a biannual update after puttying into the box.

If you want a one-purpose device for it, then you would be looking into buying a SOC computer like a Raspberry PI 3 (should be cheaper than the 4) and about an hour to set it up.

One little thing I have done is set my router's secondary DNS to 1.1.1.1, just in case the power fails or the PI goes down. When I set mine up I completely forgot to set ESXI to auto-power on the VM, so after a brief power outage I had no internet for almost an hour because I had no redundant DNS configured. I got blindsided by my own mistake. Now everything is on a UPS and the VMs are correctly configured in case power is lost long enough to require a shutdown.

https://pi-hole.net/ has more info on the install.

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

#244

Post by cgriswald »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #210
cgriswald wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to do packet inspection. Otherwise a hostile hardware manufacturer could just run their DNS on a non-standard port.

I guess if the relationship we have with our devices is full-on adversarial and yet still need them, they should be put on a dedicated subnet with a default deny rule in place. I guess, at this point, the other commenter's solution of "just stop using those things" may be the best.

Even a dedicated subnet won't be enough, because these devices could be made to connect to any open wifi until they can phone home or even use the cell network, without the user even knowing about it.

> I guess, at this point, the other commenter's solution of "just stop using those things" may be the best.

Yeah. Assuming this doesn't change, this is the end result for me, at least.

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

#245

Post by sleepdreamy »

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...

Why are some folks anti Ubiquiti Unifi?

We use this at some of our clients in the MSP space

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

#246

Post by JSTucker »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #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…

I had this same issue with family members having issues with a Pi-hole on our network. I solved the problem by setting up a Tailscale network and setting the Pi-hole as the default dns server[1]. Once set up its as simple as a turning the Tailscale connection on or off if the Pi-hole blocking causes any issues. (Plus blocking works from anywhere!)

1. https://tailscale.com/kb/1114/pi-hole/

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

#248

Post by boostchicken »

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 just checked my github stats and you guys slammed ycombinator right to the top of the referrals, didn't know it was getting so much love over here.

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

#249

Post by boostchicken »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #211
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...

Be aware that UI is planning to consolidate the UDM/UDM Pro software (1.x) into the UDM Pro SE / UDW software branch (2.x) in the near future, and the 2.x software doesn't use Podman and instead runs the software "bare metal". IIRC the udm-utilities also work on the UDM Pro SE, though i'd be a lot more worried about "messing up" when it's not confined to a docker container.

Worry not, I am ready for it :)
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