Expected Behaviour:
I should be able to access the web admin dashboard through my browser. I should also be able to SSH into my raspberry pi.
Using raspberry PI 4.
Actual Behaviour:
I get errors doing both. I do have access to PI through wired mouse / keyboard / monitor. I successfully installed pihole following this guide:
SD card was just formatted, so this is a clean install.
What I've tried:
Verified permissions in lighttpd. Feel free to go through them again with me, I'm a rookie.
Reformat SD card and reinstall the OS and pihole. verified the permissions again.
I gave the pihole a static IP through my router.
I have a Google router which I am thinking may be the cause of the issues.
For SSH make sure you are using the correct username that you set up when you enabled SSH during the OS install. Then try SSHing to 192.168.86.99 with that username. If you're using Linux or Mac you can do
ssh username@192.168.86.99
or
ssh -l username 192.168.86.99
and if you're using PuTTY in Windows double-check the username being specified.
Firewall or antivirus software may have blocked this connection."
When I SSH into it, im 99% confident I have the correct username, but I don't even get that far. I get a "permission denied."
This is kinda why I think it's my router. I have windows defender, and no other antivirus and when I turn off my firewall via windows defender completely the issue persists.
I have a google router which is fairly simple, with only an app to control it.
Yes, I activated SSH when I installed and I have my username and password written down. When I attempt to connect via putty, I don't even get to that point, and instead simply get a "Permission Denied" before I can type in the username or password.
I think it's my router- a Google Mesh router. It apparently has a built in firewall and it may be blocking all of the connection's I'm attempting.
Is this something port forwarding can fix? I attempted opening port 22 on my pihole but that did not help.
You might need to open Windows Defender Firewall and allow your browser (Edge?) and your SSH client access to the network. The fact that both are blocked tends to point to something on the Windows computer blocking them, and Defender seems a likely suspect.
For testing purposes it looks like you can turn it off using this process, so try that and see if it all starts working.
[ Edit – apologies, spotted that you mention you've tried this, leaving it in case it helps someone else in future ]
Are you able to go the URL mentioned earlier using a phone or tablet or another computer if you have one?
You're very welcome, I hope you're able to track down the cause on Windows.
Note that your router is the DHCP server and, as you say, it's got a static IP reserved for the Pi-hole. But the router's DHCP server is giving itself out as the DNS server to use for clients on your network, instead of giving out the Pi-hole's IP address. From your log:
That bottom line is the router telling clients to use itself for DNS. You will need to go into your router's DHCP settings and find the part where you give it the DNS server to hand out, and put your Pi-hole's IP address in there. Then disconnect and reconnect your computers from the network so they pick up the new settings from the router.
Test it in Windows with the command:
nslookup flurry.com
Windows will report which DNS server it is using to resolve that. If it's the Pi-hole it will give a reply of 0.0.0.0 because Pi-hole blocks that domain (known tracking domain). Your router will return the proper IP. You can use that command to make sure that Pi-hole is being used as your DNS server.
You can also run the command and explicitly use the Pi-hole to compare:
nslookup flurry.com 192.168.86.99
That should always be blocked because you're telling it to use Pi-hole there.