Clients not showing, just public IP

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1

Hi everyone, pretty new to Pi-hole, so trying to figure out why I can't get any clients to show besides my public IP. I have a somewhat custom setup. I'm running my pi-hole in an Azure VM with a public IP that is secured via iptables to only allow access from my network.

I've tried setting DHCP via Pi-hole. I'm also tried setting DHCP via my router with conditional forwarding. My router is a Netgear Orbi.

No matter what I change, I can only get my public IP to show as a client in Pi-hole. I'm guessing this has something to do with running it in Azure, but was looking for any help if someone has run into this or seen similar with running a VM that is not on your network.

My Azure VM IP is: 41.xxx.xxx.xxx
My router IP is the usual: 192.168.1.1

In my current settings I've tried keeping Pi-hole as DHCP with a range from 192.168.1.2 to .254. I've tried changing my router gateway IP to numerous things, including both of the above.

Orbi connection status:
pi3

Pi-hole client list:
pi1

Anyone have any thoughts on what I could be missing/doing wrong?

Thanks so much.

Expected Behaviour:

Client list shows devices/names/etc instead of just 1 entry

Actual Behaviour:

Pi-hole shows only 1 entry in the client list basically, it shows:
ev-esr1-XX.XX.XXX.XXX.fuse.net - where the X's equal my public IP address

2

Assuming you have a typical NAT type network, with the router as the gateway and a single IP from your ISP, all requests leaving your network will appear, to external networks such as that Azure host, to be coming from that single IP.

3

Ah, that makes sense I guess. So really no way around it, just suck it up I'm guessing?

4

You could use a VPN on your network and the Azure host to put you all on the same private subnet, and that way Pi-hole and your home devices would be part of the same network. But I think you would have to configure it in such a way that the actual non-DNS requests then left your normal NAT network onto the public Internet as normal.

Take a look at the Pi-hole Wireguard setup. It may give a starting point for setting something up that meets your needs. By default it only sends DNS over the VPN, but you may need to play around with how each client at home is configured with the VPN. Your router might support a VPN service that could cover all devices on the home network.

Another possibility is Tailscale. I've never used it but see people raving about it in various places and they have a free offering which may meet your needs.

5

Awesome, thanks for the replies/thoughts. I'll dig into these & see if it's even worth the time. Much appreciated.

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