PiHole on Raspberry Pi

🔍 What PiHole Does

• Blocks ads and trackers at the DNS level: Instead of relying on browser extensions, Pi‑hole filters requests across your entire network.
• Protects all devices: Phones, smart TVs, IoT devices, and apps benefit even if they don’t support ad‑blocking software.
• Acts as a DNS server: It replaces your router’s DNS with Pi‑hole, so all queries pass through it.
• Optional DHCP server: Can assign IP addresses and manage network configuration if you want Pi‑hole to handle that role.
• Customizable blocklists: Import community lists or create your own to block specific domains.
• Web interface: Comes with a dashboard (AdminLTE) to monitor queries, see statistics, and manage settings

🚀 Docker Installation Steps

1. Update your system
   sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
2. Install Docker
   

   curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
   sudo sh get-docker.sh

3. Install Docker Compose
   sudo apt install docker-compose-plugin
4. Add your user to the Docker group
   sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
5. Enable Docker at boot
   sudo systemctl enable docker
6. Reboot
   sudo reboot
7. Test Docker
   docker run hello-world

📁 Setup PiHole

mkdir ~/docker/pihole

🧾 Docker Compose File

In ~/docker/pihole create docker-compose.yml

networks:
  macvlan_net:
    driver: macvlan
    driver_opts:
      parent: eth0 # Use ifconfig to find this. It's probably eth0.
    ipam:
      config:
        - subnet: 192.168.86.0/24  # You can find this by running ip addr show eth0 on your Pi
          gateway: 192.168.86.1 # You can find this by running ip route | grep default on your Pi
 
services:
  pihole:
    image: pihole/pihole
    container_name: pihole
    networks:
      macvlan_net:
        ipv4_address: 192.168.86.xx  #Assign a static IP within your subnet
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:false
    restart: on-failure:5 # This makes sure that pihole is pretty much always up
    volumes:
      - <your-docker-directory>/pihole/pihole:/etc/pihole:rw
      - <your-docker-directory>/pihole/dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d:rw
    environment:
      FTLCONF_webserver_api_password: <assign a pssword you want to use to log in>
      FTLCONF_webserver_port: 8080 # port 8080 is a pretty common port so you can set this to any unused port that you want
      FTLCONF_dns_listeningMode: all
      TZ: America/New_York
      DNSMASQ_USER: pihole #or root (don't use root)
      PIHOLE_UID: 1000
      PIHOLE_GID: 10
    cap_add:
      - SYS_TIME
      - SYS_NICE

▶️ Start PiHole

From within ~/docker/pihole run:

📜 View Logs

View logs for pihole

Configure your router

Go to your router and set your primary DNS server to the address you set in your compose file.

🌐 Access Web Interface

Open your browser and go to http://<the address you defined in the compose file>:<FTLCONF_webserver_port as defined in the compose file>

Example: 192.168.86.xx:8080