foldr me 0 universe

Xiaoyi Chen


I recently was fascinated by Raspberry Pi and the maker communities behind it. One of the useful projects you can build with Raspberry Pi is [Pi-hole](https://pi-hole.net/). It blocks ads, tracking and malicious websites on every device on your local Wi-fi network, and have an easily manageable web interface.

_Caveat: Pi-hole could not block Youtube Ads. Your best bet would be using a browser like [Brave](https://brave.com/) (Founded by Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript) or paying for Youtube premium._

## What you will need

- Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
- Wi-Fi Router

## Installation

You can follow the steps on the [official website](https://pi-hole.net/) to install Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.

On your Pi, clone the [Pi-hole repository](https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole) and run the installation script:

```bash
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole.git Pi-hole
cd "Pi-hole/automated install/"
sudo bash basic-install.sh
```

Follow through the installation wizard. [This article](https://privacyinternational.org/guide-step/4341/raspberry-pi-setup-and-run-pi-hole) has some good information about the wizard steps.

## Router DNS Configuration

Next, you need to configuring the router's DHCP clients to use Raspberry Pi as their DNS Server so that when the clients resolves IP address of an Ad server Pi-hole would block it. To do that you need a couple of things:

- Raspberry Pi's IP Address
- Access to router's web admin interface. In my case it was `192.168.0.1`.

### Find Raspberry Pi's IP Address

There are [plenty of ways](https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/remote-access.html#ip-address) to find your Raspberry Pi's IP address.

Since my Raspberry Pi supports mDNS by the Avahi service, `ping raspberrypi.local` and `ping6 raspberrypi.local` from my computer return Pi's IP addresses.

If that's not the case for you, you could try out the `nmap` method. Run `sudo nmap -sn <your-computer-IP>/24` to scan the devices on your local network and look for the hostname containing Raspberry Pi.

### Static IP Address

You'll also want the Raspberry Pi's IP address to be static so that you won't need to reconfigure Pi-hole and your router for example if you restart Raspberry Pi.

To set static IP address on a Raspberry Pi:

- [https://www.makeuseof.com/raspberry-pi-set-static-ip/](https://www.makeuseof.com/raspberry-pi-set-static-ip/)

### Configure Router DNS

Configuring DNS is pretty straightforward: Check the manual of your router brand and go to the router admin page and set DNS override to the IP address of the Raspberry-Pi.

Note that it's [recommended](https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/why-should-pi-hole-be-my-only-dns-server/3376) to use Pi-hole as the **single** DNS server (Or servers, if you care about redundancy) because your clients might send blocked requests to secondary DNS Servers.

## Pi-hole Admin

Go to `http://pi.hole/admin` or `http://<Your-Pi-IP>/admin` to manage Pi-hole.

## Other Tips

### Reconfigure Pi-hole

If the IP Address of the Pi changes, you will need to reconfigure Pi-hole. Opening a terminal from Raspberry Pi and running `pihole -r` does the job.

### Turn on SSH

Preferences → Raspberry Pi Configuration → Interfaces → Enable SSH then `ssh pi@<pi-IP>`


Setting up Pi-hole for Home Ad-blocking