Hi there,
I have defined Clients based on the detected devices and provided a friendly name.
In the overview I see the name that is automatically found, but it is not always clear what client this is. Either because there a multiple devices with the same name of the name cannot be found.
Is there a way to add a column within the Network Overview to show the friendly name?
Cheers
Sjoerd
Can you post screenshots or logs?
Where did you provide friendly names? on the device itself?
Pi-hole web interface doesn't have the ability to give friendly names to devices. The Clients page has a comment field, but this comment is not used outside this page.
The Network page doesn't allow the addition of extra information.
If this is a Feature Request, we can move your topic to the correct category, but I'm not sure if this is possible.
Notes:
Pi-hole is essentially a DNS server.
From DNS point of view, a query is logged as coming from an IP, not from a hostname.
Pi-hole does at lot of steps to try to link the received IP with a hostname, but in most networks with DHCP an IP won't be always linked to the same device.
That's why sometimes an IP shows multiple hostnames at the same time and sometimes the same hostname is linked to multiple IPs (they change from time to time).
There is no guarantee a device will always use the same IP (unless you use static DHCP leases), so adding a "friendly name" to an IP might not bring the result you expect.
//TheRettom, //rdwebdesign
What I mean is that I would define a comment in the Client group management. This would be my friendly name of the particular device.
After which I would love to have this shown in the Network overview to better identify the devices.
If this is not possible I can't move it to Feature Request since I seem to not have access (greyed out)
The Network overview already has a column with a friendly Hostname.
As explained by rdwebdesign, the comment field in Client group management is just a comment field. Besides, you typically won't have to create any clients in Pi-hole at all.If you do, then only if you wanted a specific client to be filtered differently than the default, i.e. you'd create only that client.
If you want a different name to show up in Pi-hole, you either
//Bucking_Horn, Thanks for the clarification. I understand that the hostname field is there, but a lot of devices do not have this configured, nor can you configure this on the device.
I will try to see what I can do with my router or add DNS entries. That might help.
Thanks again!
edit: for example, I have several iPhone users at home, but they all show up as IPhone... not really useful.
An iPhone's name can easily be changed on device.
But it won't report its name to your router when registering DHCP if you've turned on privacy features on your iPhone (like generating a random MAC for each wifi network your iPhone connects to).
I don't have an iPhone to verify, but I believe those privacy settings can be switched off on a per network basis, and it's generally safe to disable them for your home wifi.
That is correct. I have it turned off on my home network which allows Pi-hole to see me and identify an Apple device. I've left it on (default) for all other networks, and for those it will use non-identifying MACs.
Access the feature at Settings > Wi-Fi > tap the ⓘ next to the network name > Private Wi-Fi Address
Note that once it is disabled for your your home network, the phone will display the phrase "Privacy Warning" just under the network name. If you tap the network name you'll see a text panel which advises that it is disabled, along with a handy explanation of the options. Nothing to worry about, since you trust your home network anyway.
