The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#41

Post by hoherd » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #4

Standard reminder for whenever Pi-Hole gets brought up: You don't actually need a physical Raspberry Pi for this functionality, and you don't even need the Pi-Hole software. It's all just wrappers around dnsmasq[1], which every Linux distribution makes available via their package manager. If you have an old spare Linux system on your LAN already, doing whatever, you can just install and set up dnsmasq and point your…

There are also official docs on how to run it using `docker run` and `docker compose` https://docs.pi-hole.net/docker/

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#42

Post by TechDebtDevin » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

3abiton wrote: post #40

parpfish wrote: post #37

i'd love a pihole, but networking has always been a bit of a blindspot for me. i never really understand what i'm doing, and when things break it's a game of guess'n'check which stackoverflow/gpt answer will fix it. these walkthroughs always make it look easy, but no matter how easy the set up is you can't escape the fact that you're adding a layer of complexity to the network and i just don't want to maintain it. i…

I started like you, but slowly with more debugging and customized use-cases I started understanding more and more. That's the way for people with limited free time. That said, now with LLMs, honestly anything is easily learnable.

It still shouldnt break all the time. You shouldnt havr to get good at debugging a tool like this. I use but it dors destroy my network once a month and have had to build cleanup/reinstall scripts for this scenerio. I would not recommend to most people.

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#43

Post by Twirrim » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #11

I really don't understand why people go to the trouble of using Pi-hole that only blocks at the DNS level, instead of using uBlock Origin which can block at the DOM level. uBlock Origin is easier and cheaper to set up, less maintenance, and more effective.

I use both, blocking all sorts of non-browser traffic. I find I can tell whenever the pi-hole isn't running.

On the "less maintenance" front, I honestly don't pay any attention to the pi-hole in any given month. It has automatic updates running, and reboots when it needs to. It pretty much just works and I forget about it.

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#44

Post by mikevin » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

wang_li wrote: post #12

mikestew wrote: post #2

In case you’re like a lot of folks in HN, read the title, and say to yourself “already have one”, read TFA for the iptables config that fixes those apps and devices that bypass local DNS. For example, the New York Times app seems to now use its own hard-coded DNS servers. Without having tried it, it looks like TFA has the fix for that. EDIT: replies indicate that I, a person who is barely competent at many network ta…

> read TFA for the iptables config that fixes those apps and devices that bypass local DNS. For example, Don't worry. All the browsers and stuff are bypassing this level of control by moving to DNS-over-HTTPS. You'll either have to deploy a TLS terminating proxy on your network, or give up on this arms race.

Would certificate pinning also remove the first option? I wonder if we are moving to a system where inspecting your own traffic isn't a viable option anymore, am I missing a workaround?

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#45

Post by m000 » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

jamesgeck0 wrote: post #24

mikestew wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was shocked that TFA’s recommended kit was $155! When did Raspberry Pi’s get so pricey?

I don't _think_ you need a whole Raspberry Pi 5 kit. It seems like an older Raspberry Pi 3b+ would get the job done for $35 or so. Maybe even a Raspberry Pi Zero ($5) with an micro usb ethernet adapter.

RPi5 is definitely a huge overkill. Plus, it needs a power adapter, probably some cooling, and some space to seat it.

Pi Zero 2W + micro usb ethernet adapter works perfect for Pi-Hole, and has an almost invisible physical footprint: Small enough to hot-glue on the back of your router, happily runs with power from one of the router's USB ports, and you get a 10cm ethernet cable to avoid network cable management.

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#46

Post by the_dude_ » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

it's a good post, however I agree with the comments there and here that a raspberry pi 5 with 8gb ram is an overkill for just running pihole. a good old Raspberry Pi 3 Model B with 1gb ram it's enough and it will still have capacity to run other things there. And of course pihole can run on an old laptop or desktop box you already have so no need to buy a device just for the sake of it. I would rather not run it as a docker container thou but that's just my preference

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#47

Post by FredPret » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #11

I really don't understand why people go to the trouble of using Pi-hole that only blocks at the DNS level, instead of using uBlock Origin which can block at the DOM level. uBlock Origin is easier and cheaper to set up, less maintenance, and more effective.

For me it's because:

- I need it to work within phone apps, my TV, on Safari, and on Chrome

- I just don't trust Chrome addons. When you go to install an ad blocker, there's an extremely ominous warning about how it can read everything shown on my browser.

What's worse - apparently these addons can change hands down the line, and the new owners can simply push new code.

I don't want this thing phoning home with screenshots of my bank and email.

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#48

Post by rement » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

flaburgan wrote: post #34

Does it really have to be installed in the local network? I would like to set it once in a server and then be able to configure the box of all my friends, family, etc.

Be aware that if you run it on the internet other people will find it. I had one open to the web for a bit and was a bit surprised how many systems started making requests to it.

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#49

Post by the_dude_ » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

flaburgan wrote: post #34

Does it really have to be installed in the local network? I would like to set it once in a server and then be able to configure the box of all my friends, family, etc.

it depends on your needs, but for me I set it up as the dhcp server and configure the router to go through the pihole. If you want to share it family and friends there is no better tool than tailscale, you can configure the pihole as an exit node.

Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)

#50

Post by bongodongobob » Mon, May 05, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #2

In case you’re like a lot of folks in HN, read the title, and say to yourself “already have one”, read TFA for the iptables config that fixes those apps and devices that bypass local DNS. For example, the New York Times app seems to now use its own hard-coded DNS servers. Without having tried it, it looks like TFA has the fix for that. EDIT: replies indicate that I, a person who is barely competent at many network ta…

No, that's not a fix and those iptables settings are on the router. It will only catch DNS requests on port 53. Doesn't catch DoH which you can't do on a router, you need a firewall for that.