How do I use Pi-hole's built in DHCP server (and why would I want to)?

Can I still just add my own dnsmasq config options in now that you've forked it for FTLDNS? I've had dnsmasq be my dns and dhcp server for ages and I'd like to keep my dhcp rules and subnets etc.

Where do I drop in dnsmasq config options? Do they still live in /etc/dnsmasq.d/?

Yup.

And _FTL_DNS is just our fork of dnsmasq so any custom configs that work with dnsmasq will work with Pi-hole.

I red the topic very carefully, and I don't understand how can I do the following:
One of my pc in the network contain the pi-hole installation, and I want to relay all the network from my router to this pc, in order to use pi-hole for all my home network, instead of adding middle machine, like PI between the router and the modem to do pretty much the same.

  • Consider that I don't have the option to set VPN/DNS servers on my home router, I only have the option to set relay server.
    Can you please explain my what should I do?

Thanks.

Not quite sure what you mean by this.

You coud disable the router's DHCP server (that is a default, standard option available in all routers) and enable the DHCP server in the admin interface (of Pi-hole). That will ensure that all clients connecting to the network, LAN or WiFi will all get the Pi-hole IP as the DNS server.

3 posts were split to a new topic: DHCP server custom configuration

A post was split to a new topic: Cannot enable DHCP on Pi-Hole

A post was split to a new topic: Pi-Hole as DHCP - clients not getting IP

This guide missed something.
If your router have options about:

Enable Route Advertisement
Enable DHCPv6 Server

In the IP V6 section, disable them all and then tick Enable IPv6 support (SLAAC + RA) on Pi-hole web admin.

A post was split to a new topic: Using Pi-hole DHCP server

Do you mean disabling the first 2 settings in the screenshot?[Router Advertisement-Service & DHCPv6-Service] Then enable Enable IPv6 support (SLAAC + RA) ?

Yes, disabled IP v6 on router if it is enabled.

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Hi there, may be a stupid question, but if I activate Pihole DHCP server AND disable Router DHCP (because I am not allowed to change DNS on ISP router), then my Pihole server cannot restart (or at least is not accessible from network).
I guess I need first to assign static IP address to Pihole machine ? IS that correct ?
My Pihole runs on raspberry 4 (raspbian) side by side with volumio. What is the simplest way to achieve that ?
Thank you.

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Thanks, perfect !

Can I activate DHCP server on my Ubuntu VPS not Raspberry PI?

The problem is that my pihole instance is hosted by Linode and is not local, my router wouldn't be able to locate it automatically. How would I go about doing this with an external server?

DHCP uses broadcast addresses, it only works on the segment that Pi-hole is connected to directly. A router in between Pi-hole and the client breaks the broadcast domain and you'd have to use something like a DHCP helper or relay on the router to connect the segments.

A DHCP server located across a WAN link is a really bad idea.

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I have DHCP enabled on the raspberry pi running pi-hole in docker. Everything seems to be working correctly, though I do not have the router DNS server pointed at the raspberry pi.

So, to confirm, do I need to set the router DNS address to the raspberry pi IP address when pi-hole is running as the DHCP server?

Shouldn't need to. What isn't working with the current setup?

Pi-hole is working great! I just wanted to confirm that if using the Pi-hole for DHCP, I do not also need to configure the DNS server on my router. I asked because I don't know where the 'router responsibility' stops and the 'pi-hole responsibility' starts (devices 'physically' connect to the router but then the pi-hole does everything else?).

I didn't see it stated explicitly in the docs that if the Pi-hole DHCP service is enabled, then the Pi-hole is also acting as the server DNS automatically, and the DNS configuration on the router is not needed.

Hopefully this response here can help someone else with the same question. Thanks Dan!