Setting up a Pi-Hole taught me a ton about how networks work. It's a really cool thing to setup for fun.
The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
81–90 of 211 posts
Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#82Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#83In 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…
> 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. Those commands in TFA simply reroute traffic on port 53 to Pi-Hole, which isn't enough to prevent apps from doing their own name resolution. For instance, the Telegram app has built-in DNS-over-HTTPS, which those iptables chains could do nothing about.
You can block known DoH servers.
Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#84Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#85In 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…
An increasing number of them also rely on hard coded DoH servers which is harder to block/redirect. You will need to will Pi-Hole/Adguard Home on router to block them based on some curtailed lists (i.e [1]) [1] https://github.com/dibdot/DoH-IP-blocklists
And before DoH was a thing, several Chinese apps I've used also used to do plain HTTP for DNS resolution (I only caught them by chanbecause they were doing HTTP). PiHoles only work for apps that stick to the standards and don't mind being caught.
Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
An increasing number of them also rely on hard coded DoH servers which is harder to block/redirect. You will need to will Pi-Hole/Adguard Home on router to block them based on some curtailed lists (i.e [1]) [1] https://github.com/dibdot/DoH-IP-blocklists
In this arms race you are saying a current "move" is a curated list of IPs that correspond to known DoH servers ... and that's fine .. However, if the adversary decides to just query - and answer - DoH requests on the same hostname that you are trying to talk to ... isn't that a winning move ? For instance: If one had an application - or an appliance - that spoke https to endpoint.samsung.com, how would one block DoH…
That might work but if your Samsung example is behind cloudflare, you're basically going to have to block any and all access to cloudflare's Network.
And if telemetry.example-iot.com belongs to an AWS IP, it could change to another IP in their space at any time so your only recourse would be to limit connectivity to all of AWS which would effectively prevent you from accessing most things on the internet
Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#87I 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.
pihole, adguard, nextdns etc work at the network level. meaning you do not need to configure client devices. its one and done. also means that your dummy clients like TVs, IOT devices, etc... are going to be participating as well. you can't install ublock origin on a TV, or my dog's wifi collar, etc.
Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#88Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#89What I want is something that amounts to a stateful firewall/allow list on top of PiHole ... if a device is attempting to connect to an ip address which was not resolved by PiHole then it gets blocked ... Similarly if the RDNS for an address resolves to a domain PiHole would block it gets dropped as well.
Far too many apps/IoT/appliances have gotten smart and use DoH (or similar methods of circumventing network control). Despite that they all require routing and can still be forcibly cut off.
Re: The Beauty of Having a Pi-Hole (2024)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, if you are geeky enough to run a PiHole you will have no trouble finding the config option to turn off DoH in your browser.
Don't turn it off in your browser. If you have control of that setting just install an ad blocker. The point of DNS block lists is to get rid of ads on phones, TVs, and other non configurable things.
Except, now you don't really control your web browser either, and ad blockers are getting crippled. It is an uphill battle.