Setting up Pi-hole

So I got a Raspberry Pi from Amazon prime day deals. The first thing I came up using it is setting up the Pi-hole. Pi-hole is an internet ad blocker running as a DHCP server.

Install Pi-hole on Raspberry Pi OS is pretty simple, just follow the steps on its GitHub page. One step is that I need to choose run it on wlan0 or eth0 interface, wlan0 is used if the Raspberry Pi connected to the network via WiFi and eth0 is used if it is connected via Ethernet cable. After installation, I have to set it up on the router because I want to make it for all the devices connected to the WIFI-network. There is a guide here, however, my router does not have the settings listed in the guide. I ended up disable my router’s DHCP server in the LAN setting and enable the DHCP server provided by Pi-hole. It can be configured in the settings-DHCP of the web interface.

Another thing I did was add more blocklists besides the default two. I added more from this website: List Generator ¦ Firebog. I also disabled the logging function by running pihole -l off on the Raspberry Pi.

It works out great. It blocks all the ads on eXtreme test on can you block it. One problem though, how do I use it while I was not home? Because it sits on my home router. If I study at school, I have to go back to the browser extension based ad-blockers. I read that I can set up a VPN and access Pi-hole while I’m not at home via the VPN. If I have time I will try to set up it.