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How to Set Out Pi Hole on Raspberry Pi

How to Set Out Pi Hole on Raspberry Pi

Introduction

One of the most popular raspberry pi projects, Pi-hole blocks ads and trackers for all of the devices on your network

Overview

The Pi-hole blocks ads and trackers from devices connected to your network by acting as a sinkhole for the Domain Name System, or DNS. This is a critically important service that enables the conversion of domain names to IP addresses and is used by all computing devices connected to the internet.

Requirements

Things you will need to set this project up include:

• Raspberry Pi (any model with network connectivity should work, Pi 3, 4, and 5 all work well, and are popular choices for this project, even Pi Zero W works for a home network)
• Micro sd card (At least 16 GB is needed, but can be anything beyond that) with raspberry pi os                installed
• Power supply for your raspberry pi
• Network connection (Ethernet cable is recommended)
Features
• Blocks ads and trackers for all devices on the network;
• Does not require any extra software on every device (in contrast with other ad-blocking extensions)
• Open source
• Comes with a web dashboard for managing the Pi-hole and seeing what it does
• Does not require much power, and is perfect for 24-hour operation.

The Installation

First, you should flash the raspberry pi os to the sd card if you have not already done so, and set it up (wifi connection, etc). Once you have set up the Pi, and booted it up, the first thing to do is to update the system. This can be done by typing in the terminal:
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y
Next we will install pi hole by running the one-liner:
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
After this, you will need to go through the setup process. In it, you will need to do the following:
• Choose which upstream DNS provider you want to use (Google or Cloudflare, among others)
• Choose which blocklists you want to use (the defaults should be fine for most people)
• Set the static IP address your raspberry pi will use so that devices on your network can always find it.
Make sure to note down the admin password, as you will need it to access the admin dashboard. Once the installation is complete, configure your router to use Pi-hole as the DNS server by pointing it to the static IP address of the Pi. Then you will need to restart your devices so that they use Pi-hole instead of the previous DNS server.

Verification

To verify that the Pi-hole is working, go to http://[your-pi-ip]/admin and log in with the password you set up. Then open a website that has many ads and check if they are gone. You can also check the dashboard to see if the Pi-hole is blocking any queries. If everything is set up correctly, you should see a significant decrease in the number of ads and trackers.

Troubleshooting

Ads appear on some websites despite using Pi-hole

Some websites utilize JavaScript to detect when ad-blocking software is being used and take measures to work around it. Pi-hole cannot block these ads because they are not loaded through the DNS system.

Your devices cannot access the internet after setting up Pi-hole

This happens when the Pi is offline or has an IP address different from what was set in the router. In the latter case, you should go into your network settings and set a static IP address for the Pi. In the former case simply power on the Pi.

The dashboard is not accessible

Ensure that you are using the correct IP address and that it is correctly formatted. You should also try adding /admin at the end of the URL in case it was omitted by mistake. If this does not work, try using pi.hole/admin instead.

Common Issues

Problem

Likely Cause

Solution

No ads blocked at all

Router DNS not updated

Re-check router's DNS settings point to Pi's IP

Pi-hole IP keeps changing

No static IP configured

Set a static IP either in Pi-hole's network settings or via router DHCP reservation

Some ads slip through

Ads served from same domain as content

Expected limitation — combine with a browser extension for full coverage on stubborn sites

 

Upgrades / Improvements

There are many ways to improve upon this project, including the following:
• Set up a separate Pi for acting as a backup DNS server in case the primary one fails;
• Set up DNS-over-HTTPS
• Add additional blocklists
• Set up a web server and a virtual private network (VPN) server.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Pi-hole block all ads?

Unfortunately, Pi-hole will not block all ads. This is because some websites serve their ads through the same domain as the website itself, and Pi-hole cannot differentiate between the two.

Will Pi-hole slow down my internet?

No, it will not. In fact, it may speed it up slightly, because it caches the domains it has already blocked.

What happens if my raspberry pi is turned off?

If the raspberry pi is turned off, it will no longer be able to process any DNS queries, and therefore, any devices that rely on it will not be able to access the internet.

Can I use a raspberry pi zero?

Yes, you can. The raspberry pi zero should be powerful enough to run Pi-hole, although it may be a bit slower than other models.

Conclusion

You have now successfully set up Pi-hole on a raspberry pi, which will block all ads and trackers that come through your network, and therefore, all of your devices. This project is one of the easiest and most impactful raspberry pi projects for a beginner to attempt, and is a great way to get started with using raspberry pi as a network server rather than a personal computer.

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