First time setup - PiHole installed w/ Static IP and blocklists but doesn't block or allow internet access

Hi all,

First time setup here. Attempted to follow Linus Tech Tips's youtube video on the subject, but got stuck after setting up the hardware and installing PiHole. I can access the admin page and setup blocklists, but was unable to get these blocklists to take effect.

I configured my router to DD-WRT a while ago as well but honestly do not have confidence that I did a great job on that end, so it may also be causing issues.

Expected Behaviour:

Web traffic will filter through the Raspberry Pi's static IP set at 192.168.1.50, which will use the blocklists to prevent some ads and some pornography.
When using the raspberry pi’s web browser, domains in the blocklist are blocked.

-Using Windows 10 OS

-CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 4GB Starter Pro Kit

which is connected by ethernet cable to:

-Router: Tp-link 300mbps wireless n router model tl-wr841n , configured with DD-WRT

Actual Behaviour:

When I attempt to direct traffic to the static IP of 192.168.1.50, there is no internet access. This occurs whether I direct traffic on a device level basis or through my router. (I have since reset devices like my home PC back to automatic IP&DNS, to allow for internet access)

When using the raspberry pi’s web browser, domains in the blocklist are not blocked.

Debug Token:

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/i474c1tc2x

I get the understanding that I'm much less tech savvy in this field than plenty of you. I understand that I'm going to need to follow a few instructions to get from here to the finish line. I'll dutifully follow all instructions -- I'm at your mercy. Thanks so much!

It looks like you have both the wired network interface (eth0) and WiFi (wlan0) connected. This will cause some confusion on the network. If you're going to use the Ethernet connection then go in to sudo rpi-config and disable the WiFi interface.

Reboot and see if things are still not working, and send a new debug token if they are still broken.

Edit: And .50 looks like it's the IP for the wlan0 interface. The eth0 interface is at .145.

Thanks for the quick reply.

I went into sudo raspi-config (not to harp on anything, as a super noob these minor typos are very hard to figure out). I searched every menu but did not find any way to disable the WiFi through that config.

What I did do is turn off WiFi with the desktop by clicking in the top right.

I now see
eth0 Configured: 192.168.1.50/24
wlan0: Not associated

If there's something special I need to do through the raspi-config, kindly provide step by step instructions.

I do not know how to change the static IP anymore for the eth0 to turn it into .145 .

Pihole still does not block anything it's supposed to.

So you are running Raspbian Desktop?
You don't need to use raspi-config.
You mentioned that you already disabled Wifi, just make sure you can access internet,

Open a browser, or try to ping your Upstream DNS, maybe

ping 8.8.8.8

or

nslookup dns.google

I made sure I can access the internet per your request. I could before. That was not the issue. The issue appears to be that PiHole does not block anything right now.

Here's what the commands showed:

ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data. 
64 bytes from 8.7.7.7: icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 time=27.3 ms

(Repeating sequence from here changing seq and time)

nslookup dns.google
Server: 8.8.8.8
Address: 8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: dns.google
Address: 8.8.8.8
Name: dns.google
Address: 8.8.4.4
Name: dns.google
Address: 2001:4860:4860: :8844
Name: dns.google
Address: 2001:4860:4860: :8888

My issue has not been resolved.

What ever device you ran nslookup on isn't using Pi-hole for it's DNS server. It's using 8.8.8.8.

You need to configure your clients to use Pi-hole as their only DNS server.

Zarent, no worries, you are doing good.

DD-WRT makes it a little more complicated

On windows you could do force Pihole DNS doing something like this

netsh interface ipv4 set dns name="Wireless" static 192.168.1.50

or set up DNS manually in your TP link router with DD-WRT
this poster seems to know more about DD-WRT

in both cases check

ipconfig /all
to see Pihole's IP as DNS

Let me know :slight_smile:

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