Setting up Pi-hole

I'm using Ultimate via a github url on my Mikrotik which now includes an adblocking feature called adlist. I have noticed various url's used though, I would imagine it's just a way of spreading the load so nothing to worry about.
 
Ad_Augendae said:
I'm using Ultimate via a github url on my Mikrotik which now includes an adblocking feature called adlist. I have noticed various url's used though, I would imagine it's just a way of spreading the load so nothing to worry about.
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Probably and that would make sense in the circumstances.

I sorted my ad blocking issue anyway. I noticed the DNS on the device wasn't pointing at my ad blocker for some reason like every other device in the house was. Googled the DNS servers and it returned my VPN client which was active for some reason but is also only installed on one user's profile. It must have been auto connecting on every boot. As soon as I disconnected from the VPN adguard home started blocking ads. So all due to my own incompetence :o
 
I always get oddities with my Pihole setup, I tend to find it does some pretty aggressive blocking on legitimate links. Such as on HUKD or things like Quidco. Makes it a pain to use sometimes...
 
rIcK said:
I always get oddities with my Pihole setup, I tend to find it does some pretty aggressive blocking on legitimate links. Such as on HUKD or things like Quidco. Makes it a pain to use sometimes...
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They aren't strictly legitimate though... They are tracking links (and are used by both of the sites you mentioned)
 
rIcK said:
I always get oddities with my Pihole setup, I tend to find it does some pretty aggressive blocking on legitimate links. Such as on HUKD or things like Quidco. Makes it a pain to use sometimes...
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working as intended. they are tracking/affiliate links used for ad targeting.
 
Over the last few weeks, I've been playing with the adlists used. For ages, all I had was the Hagezi light list but I thought it'd be interesting to start increasing it. I went to the medium list and tested it, then I went to the pro list. That was all good so I've added extras.

I now use the following:

Hagezi Pro list

Hagezi threat intelligence feed full

Hagezi fakes

Hagezi pop-ups

Hagezi badware hoster

Hagezi known malicious top level domains

I have two items in my whitelist and that's to allow clickable links from google searches (this is legacy, may not be needed any more) and a handful of manual blacklist items, just stuff I don't want on my network.

As far as I'm aware, I've not had anything blocked that shouldn't be.
 
Feek said:
Over the last few weeks, I've been playing with the adlists used. For ages, all I had was the Hagezi light list but I thought it'd be interesting to start increasing it. I went to the medium list and tested it, then I went to the pro list. That was all good so I've added extras.

I now use the following:

Hagezi Pro list

Hagezi threat intelligence feed full

Hagezi fakes

Hagezi pop-ups

Hagezi badware hoster

Hagezi known malicious top level domains

I have two items in my whitelist and that's to allow clickable links from google searches (this is legacy, may not be needed any more) and a handful of manual blacklist items, just stuff I don't want on my network.

As far as I'm aware, I've not had anything blocked that shouldn't be.
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Thanks mate - I have also been thinking about updating mine, might have a look at this.... just out of a question - Do you have 1 or 2 piholes? Always worry about if it goes down?

Thanks,

Stelly
 
Stelly said:
Thanks mate - I have also been thinking about updating mine, might have a look at this.... just out of a question - Do you have 1 or 2 piholes? Always worry about if it goes down?
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I've got two, I use them as dhcp servers as well so I've split the range between them, each one gives out their own IP as primary and the other one as secondary DNS. If one goes down, everything goes through the other one.

But they don't go down. The only failure I've ever had was when I knocked the power on one of them and only noticed a week later!
 
Feek said:
I've got two, I use them as dhcp servers as well so I've split the range between them, each one gives out their own IP as primary and the other one as secondary DNS. If one goes down, everything goes through the other one.

But they don't go down. The only failure I've ever had was when I knocked the power on one of them and only noticed a week later!
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Might look into this then - I only use mine as DNS and let my UDM Pro handle DHCP - have been noticing it getting slow with setting up Kubernetes - but not sure thats actually the pihole - might set one up just for the kubernetes cluster - not sure though was thinking about having just a secondary for the whole network - given me something to think about though - Cheers mate :)

Stelly
 
I've had to give my RPi 4/Pi-Hole a lot of attention this week just gone. I had issues with connectivity just disappearing with only a power cycle of the Pi fixing it. Some days last week I had to do this 3-4 times a day! It seems to happen every few months: stable for a long period then suddenly Pi-Hole stops working and needs a restart. When it's bad it's several times a day. I have a 32GB Panasonic microSD card in my Pi and seeing as I have the official Pi power supply I assume the micro SD card is the weakest link in my setup. I've therefore got another microSD (SanDisk Ultea 64GB) card ready with the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite x64 with the same hostname and login settings as my current OS as well as a recent backup of Pi-Hole so I could conceivably swap the new micro SD card in, sign into Pi-Hole and import the backup and be up and running pretty quickly and smoothly. However the Pi has been stable (touch wood) for a few days now.

What make and class of microSD cards are others using for their Pi's and Pi-Hole? I'm half thinking about getting a Pi 5 and a small NVME SSD to eliminate the microSD card as being the weakest link. I already have a Pimoroni NVME base so would just need to order the Pi 5 and find a decent NVME. Or is this overkill? :p
Feek said:
Over the last few weeks, I've been playing with the adlists used. For ages, all I had was the Hagezi light list but I thought it'd be interesting to start increasing it. I went to the medium list and tested it, then I went to the pro list. That was all good so I've added extras.

I now use the following:

Hagezi Pro list

Hagezi threat intelligence feed full

Hagezi fakes

Hagezi pop-ups

Hagezi badware hoster

Hagezi known malicious top level domains

I have two items in my whitelist and that's to allow clickable links from google searches (this is legacy, may not be needed any more) and a handful of manual blacklist items, just stuff I don't want on my network.

As far as I'm aware, I've not had anything blocked that shouldn't be.
Click to expand...
Going to give them a go too. I've turned off my existing adlists apart from my Samsung TV and NSFW lists. I had been planning to check in on this thread to see what the current best lists to be used were so your post is timely! :)
 
MarcLister said:
What make and class of microSD cards are others using for their Pi's and Pi-Hole?
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None - I run it as a VM on an esxi host at home (and under hyper-v at work)

MarcLister said:
I'm half thinking about getting a Pi 5 and a small NVME SSD to eliminate the microSD card as being the weakest link.
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Forget pi's in general and just buy a mini pc to run it on (unless you've got a nas or something that you could run it on)
 
Armageus said:
Forget pi's in general and just buy a mini pc to run it on (unless you've got a nas or something that you could run it on)
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I must admit, I'm tempted to do this with the pi-hole and reduce it down to a single device. Any suggestions on a suitable mini pc that I could set up esxi on and throw a VM for this? It'd be a single use so nothing else would be on it.
 
Feek said:
I must admit, I'm tempted to do this with the pi-hole and reduce it down to a single device. Any suggestions on a suitable mini pc that I could set up esxi on and throw a VM for this? It'd be a single use so nothing else would be on it.
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Something like

Technically don't even need esxi, could just run it natively on Linux or in a docker on a base Linux os, if you've nothing else you need to run
 
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Feek said:
I must admit, I'm tempted to do this with the pi-hole and reduce it down to a single device. Any suggestions on a suitable mini pc that I could set up esxi on and throw a VM for this? It'd be a single use so nothing else would be on it.
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I've got a Lenovo M73 Tiny with an Intel i3-4150T that is currently running OpenMediaVault for a basic single SSD NAS. I've ordered components to build a new NAS and I'm thinking of re-purposing the M73 Tiny to run my Pi-Hole setup.
Armageus said:
Something like

Technically don't even need esxi, could just run it natively on Linux or in a docker on a base Linux os, if you've nothing else you need to run
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For £80 that's a bargain for a good Pi-Hole mini PC.
 
Also running on my home server rather than a Pi now, although I used to boot the Pi 3B+ from USB (flash drive) after having SD issues and it was always fine.

May have a look at running on MikroTik router, didn’t know you could do that.
 
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