Best method for naming clients?

[spm2600]

I'd like for all the devices to be easily identifiable. I went to group management > clients but that just seems to be used for selecting ad blocking groups and doesn't impact how the client shows in reports or DHCP table which leads to my ultimate goal...

I'd like to do MAC filtering for my network to block everything that I don't make a reservation for. Not sure if this is possible on pihole. I have it set as my DHCP and was thinking about making reservations for everything on my network. I don't understand the hostname field- is that going to pish a hostname to the device or is that just for me to identify what it is? Secondly, how do I block anything outside of what I've identified are my devices?

[jfb]

To assign names to individual IPs, you can either map them directly in the /etc/hosts file on the Pi, or use the Local DNS Records tab to map them in /etc/pihole/custom.list using the Pi-hole web admin interface.

@spm2600

I'd like to do MAC filtering for my network to block everything that I don't make a reservation for. Not sure if this is possible on pihole

It is possible, but you will need to use Pi-hole as your DHCP server and add a dnsmasq configuration file to do this.

Things you can do with dnsmasq!

I came up with some stuff that eases things a little bit with my Pi-Hole life. Some of the ideas here, I gathered from around the internet. I wanted to share my findings. These configs are to be placed in /etc/dnsmasq.d I do realize that these could easily be combined into a single 04-custom.conf, but for the ease of teaching myself things I can do with this,, I like them seperate. Bypass Pihole by MAC Address What this Does: Find the MAC Address of the device that you want to skip pihole, …

@spm2600

Secondly, how do I block anything outside of what I've identified are my devices?

You can assign all your regular clients to a new management group in Pi-hole, and assign all the current blocking to that group only. For the default group (where any clients not specifically assigned to the new group would reside), you can apply any blocking you want. All (by regex blocking the root domain), or no blocking at all (asssign no adlists or domains to the default group).

[spm2600]

In the DHCP reservation does hostname try to force that on the client? Or is that just an identifier for me? The "Local DNS Records" wants to associate a domain to an IP, not a friendly name.

If I could just have everything show with a friendly name I'd be happy.

So for example I have 192.168.1.251 reserved for my printer, the hostname I didn't touch so in the reservation it shows as "BRW48E244447D25" I am able to remove and re-add it with the hostname of "Printer" but when I try to do the same with my phone changing the hostname from "Galaxy-S9" to "Seans Phone" it says invalid hostname.

[jfb]

@spm2600

The "Local DNS Records" wants to associate a domain to an IP, not a friendly name.

The IP is associated with any name you give it. For example:

192.168.0.111 Happy-computer

@spm2600

when I try to do the same with my phone changing the hostname from "Galaxy-S9" to "Seans Phone" it says invalid hostname.

Names cannot contain spaces.

For your specific case, please post the contents of your hosts file, custom list, dhcp leases, etc. so we can see what names you have used in the various places.