Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 6:20 am
siclark offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

If it's toggling straight back on I think you are using the wing password. It's a very long string for a web password. It's not the same admin page password to get to the console


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Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:08 am
Professor Falken offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

siclark wrote:
If it's toggling straight back on I think you are using the wing password. It's a very long string for a web password. It's not the same admin page password to get to the console



That would cause different behavior when using the "toggle" Indigo command as opposed to "Turn On" or "Turn Off", both of which seem to work? It seems like would keep the plugin from working at all.

I used the API token I found on the console admin page.

Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:33 am
autolog offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

I think it is a bug in the plugin - I have just tested it and it does as you say. :|

At the risk of poking my nose in and getting it wrong :wink: and taking a quick look at the plugin code there is a comment where I would expect the code to do the hardware toggle i.e:
Code: Select all
# Command hardware module (dev) to toggle here:
It looks as if the Indigo device is getting updated but no command is sent to Pi-Hole to do the same. The Indigo Device is therefore set back to the state of Pi-hole which hasn't been toggled at the next polling update (i.e. within 10 seconds in my case).

No doubt easily fixable. :)

Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:54 am
Ramias offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Just pushed a new release to Github with toggle support.

EDIT: it is now in the Plugin Store.
Last edited by Ramias on Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:57 am
Ramias offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Pi Hole has great logging. From the longs you can whitelist certain sites that are causing you issues (i.e. emails not rendering properly; so you can allow more in than what PiHole would initially block).

Separately, I did have issues with PiHole on a Raspberry Pi which I think was related to IO on the SD card. For this reason I run it in a docker container on my snap and it runs awesome. You could also run it in a docker container on your Mac.

Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 8:12 am
Professor Falken offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Thanks for both. I'll look into those options.

Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 8:26 am
siclark offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Ramias wrote:
Pi Hole has great logging. From the longs you can whitelist certain sites that are causing you issues (i.e. emails not rendering properly; so you can allow more in than what PiHole would initially block).


I hadn't checked emails since setting this up yesterday but yes, had same problem but only had 2 sites to whitelist, so far. Better than turning the whole thing off.


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Posted on
Sat Apr 27, 2019 9:13 am
autolog offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Ramias wrote:
Just pushed a new release to Github with toggle support.

Not sure how long it will take to get to the Indigo Plugin Store.

But you can get it directly here: https://github.com/Ramias1/indigo-pi-ho ... /tag/1.1.0

Installed and tested OK. :)

Thanks for the ultra-quick fix. :D

Posted on
Sun Apr 28, 2019 1:58 pm
Professor Falken offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Yes, the updated plugin fixed that issue perfectly, thanks.

I'm trying a fresh install (new card) with the pi before moving on to Docker on our Mac Mini. I did install Docker (toolbox, my mini is still running El Capitan) but it seemed to eat up a fair amount of memory, so I'd like to see if I can get pi-hole to run on the pi first before committing to that route. So far it's running a lot smoother (no DNS errors), but I've still got it in the "off" state right now, before enabling it and setting to whitelisting some of the sites that were causing family strife earlier.

Thanks for the update.

Posted on
Sun Apr 28, 2019 3:06 pm
jalves offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Just a suggestion for those who are inclined to try setting up a Pi-Hole as a result of this test. Go ahead and get a pi properly configured, but then try it out on a single machine on your LAN. Easy to do. On the Mac, go into the Network settings panel and click on advanced. Find the DNS tab and enter the ip address of your Pi. Then you can try normal activities on your Mac to see if anything is broken. Once you are comfortable, change your other computers over to the pi-hole.

Running Indigo 2023.2 on a 24" iMac M1), OS X 14.4
Jeff

Posted on
Sun Apr 28, 2019 3:27 pm
Professor Falken offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

jalves wrote:
Just a suggestion for those who are inclined to try setting up a Pi-Hole as a result of this test. Go ahead and get a pi properly configured, but then try it out on a single machine on your LAN. Easy to do. On the Mac, go into the Network settings panel and click on advanced. Find the DNS tab and enter the ip address of your Pi. Then you can try normal activities on your Mac to see if anything is broken. Once you are comfortable, change your other computers over to the pi-hole.


Yeah, I kinda thought about that, but as the default "network manager" for a family of 4, I think I'd rather just get hit with all the various complaints (from all the devices) at once this weekend and see if I can knock them out with whitelisting.

I appreciate all the suggestions in this thread though.

It's funny how the Indigo board turns out to be such a useful resource for so much of home automation outside of just the Indigo implementation.

Posted on
Sun Apr 28, 2019 11:35 pm
siclark offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Ramias wrote:
Separately, I did have issues with PiHole on a Raspberry Pi which I think was related to IO on the SD card. For this reason I run it in a docker container on my snap and it runs awesome. You could also run it in a docker container on your Mac.

Interested to know what your issues were as I am running on a pi but have a qnap as well. Was it performance/speed related? Or it just didn't work?


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Posted on
Mon Apr 29, 2019 4:55 am
Ramias offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

siclark wrote:
Ramias wrote:
Separately, I did have issues with PiHole on a Raspberry Pi which I think was related to IO on the SD card. For this reason I run it in a docker container on my snap and it runs awesome. You could also run it in a docker container on your Mac.

Interested to know what your issues were as I am running on a pi but have a qnap as well. Was it performance/speed related? Or it just didn't work?


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Night,y around 10pm or so dns queries would just be not responsive for a brief period of time. Then resume.

0 issues in a container on the Qnap.

Posted on
Fri May 03, 2019 12:19 pm
siclark offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Cheers. Going to try the container. Did you follow instructions for it? I've found this which suggests a different way to install it got seems easy to follow.

https://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?t=147501

Posted on
Fri May 03, 2019 5:01 pm
siclark offline
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Re: Pi-Hole (ad blocking DNS server) Controller

Got this working as per the instructions but lots of difficulty with the virtual switch for a few hours.

So much faster then the rPi2. I don't suggest anyone try on less than a 3.


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