Confusion on whitelist ad list domains

[jeffschips]

Please follow the below template, it will help us to help you!

Expected Behaviour:

better explanation of whitelist ad ist domains

Actual Behaviour:

I don't understand the double entendre definition

Debug Token:

[Replace this text with the debug token provided from running pihole -d (or running the debug script through the web interface]

Love the pihole but sometimes the learning curve for me a bit up hill. Please bear with me.

The pihole admin console states:

"Note that the ad list domains are automatically added to the whitelist so that a list can never get blocked by another list.:

Not only is that a sentence that I cannot interpret but it sounds like pihole is whitelisting ad domains - isn't that counter to the project's purpose?

The admin console goes on to state: "Some of the domains shown below are domains of the adlists sources, which are automatically added in order to prevent adlists being able to blacklist each other."

I'm sure I'm misunderstanding the admin console explanation, but the way it is written I can't comprehend.

Also if a user deletes all those what is the net effect on the Pihole blocking ads? If removed, how are they put back?

Thank you.

[RamSet]

@jeffschips

"Note that the ad list domains are automatically added to the whitelist so that a list can never get blocked by another list.:

Let me "translate" this for you.

The pihole whitelist has priority when it comes to filtering, as in if a domain is specified in the whitelist (manual entry basically) let's say google, it will always be allowed EVEN if google is in one of the blocklists downloaded automatically from one of the ad list domains.

Those ad list domains are basically the places where pi-hole is downloading and compiling the lists from (specified under Settings/ Block Lists).

What the above text translates into, is that the domains specified in Settings/Block lists are WHITE LISTED by default, in order to prevent a possible conflict and prevent list downloading, where one of the sources for those lists might be present and hence defined as "blocked" by one of the other lists.

To clarify:
hosts-file.net is one of the sources for the ad lists.

if let's say mirror1.malwaredomains.com's list HAS an entry defining hosts-file.net as one of the ad domains, under normal circumstances, hosts-file.net would be blocked because of it.

However, since the hosts-file.net IS whitelisted, it will bypass that restriction present in mirror1.malwaredomains.com's list.

@jeffschips

Also if a user deletes all those what is the net effect on the Pihole blocking ads? If removed, how are they put back?

If you delete those whitelisted domains, you break the above scenario and your lists from specific hosts, might not download.

The ad lists are managed by third parties and sometimes legitimate domains might be defined in there ...

They are NOT added back, when the lists are updated (if they are not deleted from Settings/Block lists).

I order to add the back to the whtelist, you'd have to manually add the domain there yourself (once deleted).

[DanSchaper]

We have made some changes to the code in the next release. Where we previously would whitelist the domain of an blocklist so that you would always have access to download that blocklist even if another blocklist would prevent that action, we will no longer be automatically adding domains to the whitelist.

What this means: With the current behavior if you add a blocklist from my.reallycool.domain, we previously would add reallycool.domain to the whitelist. That would prevent my.reallybad.domain from adding reallycool.domain to be blocked, and blocking your access to download the wanted blocklist.

What we are changing: We will no longer add the domains for blocklists to the whitelist.

How this affects you: You will need to check your blocklists and make sure that they are not blocked by a second block list.

Why we changed: We agree that automatically adding domains to a whitelist is not a good idea. We don't like automatically modifying your white and blacklists without express permission or notification. We also can see that if you used a blocklist from, for example, Amazon AWS, this would open all of amazon to your whitelist and this may not be a good thing to do.

[DanSchaper]

Related Pull Request: Remove default blocklists from install by PromoFaux · Pull Request #2123 · pi-hole/pi-hole · GitHub