Rubin Shrestha
Rubin Shrestha
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Need workaround to use Pihole as my home network’s DNS server

by |Published

I have followed Raspberry Pi’s tutorial for setting up Pihole, but realized down the line that my router has some settings limitation on their recommended admin panels

Here are the status and version responses

$ pihole status
/opt/pihole/utils.sh: line 100: local: FTL_PID_FILE: readonly variable
  [✓] FTL is listening on port 53
     [✓] UDP (IPv4)
     [✓] TCP (IPv4)
     [✓] UDP (IPv6)
     [✓] TCP (IPv6)

  [✓] Pi-hole blocking is enabled

$ pihole version
Core version is v6.4.2 (Latest: v6.4.2)
Web version is v6.5 (Latest: v6.5)
FTL version is v6.6.1 (Latest: v6.6.1)

What I have missed during setup is that my router’s DHCP settings, including the DNS, cannot be changed, and the DHCP cannot be disabled on the router level (all inputs on DHCP settings are disabled)

The only place where I could edit DNS settings on the router is on the WAN level, which uses PPPoE as a protocol

  • When I set my Pi’s static IP as the only DNS server on the WAN DNS settings, internet doesn’t work
  • When I add another IP as the secondary DNS server on the WAN DNS settings, I can use internet again (I have set the Pihole’s upstream DNS, and also using same DNS as my router’s secondary DNS for now)

I have tried switching protocols on the mobile app to administrate my router, but it just broke everything and I somehow had to factory reset the router to have internet working again, assign another static IP to the Pi

The router is a Nokia WiFi Beacon 3.1

A workaround I have tried on my PC and phone is installing Tailscale on the Pi, on the PC and on the phone, and connecting to Tailscale as VPN seems to work just fine, but I can’t apply that to the main device that I wanted to use Pihole for: my TV

Summary:

  • Pihole is set up correctly (upstream DNS set to Quad9, DHCP not enabled on Pihole, static IP address set up)
  • Router DHCP settings cannot be touched and router DHCP is enabled by default
  • Setting up the Pi’s static IP on WAN Primary DNS settings without Secondary DNS shuts down internet
  • Can’t enable Pi’s DHCP server because router’s DHCP server can’t be disabled
  • Tailscale approach works just fine on a per device basis

Question:
Is there a workaround that would either allow me to change my router’s DHCP DNS settings or deactivate it so I could use Pihole’s DHCP settings isntead?

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