When updating a while ago, my Pi-hole lost the ability to show host names instead of IP addresses in the admin panel. I was able to overcome this by manually editing some config file. But after this, my Pi-hole didn't show the names I assigned to devices in my router, but rather the ones that the …

[image] Bucking_Horn: I was able to overcome this by manually editing some config file. Did you edit /etc/pihole/local.list?

[image] jfb: Did you edit /etc/pihole/local.list ? No, not to fix the lost ability to show host names instead of IP addresses in the admin panel.

I misunderstood the problem. You would map IP's to host names in /etc/hosts. The file /etc/pihole/local.list provides the name for the Pi itself and maps the name pi.hole to the Pi IP address (as does /etc/hosts) Is there a way to make Pi-hole pick the nicer name, other than resorting to hard-cod…

Thanks for your quick reply :slight_smile: [image] jfb: Unless you can clean this up in the router, no. The router just gives me the option to assign a name to a given MAC address, which I already did. The cryptic name is obviously injected by the android device itself (where I can't change …

[image] Bucking_Horn: How does Pi-hole derive at the host name to display for a given IP address, if there is more than one name for it ? If it doesn't get if from the router, it looks in /etc/hosts. I recall that the hosts file will override the router name. Add a few IP's to the hosts fil…

Yes, I am aware editing /etc/hosts will allow me to override router issued names, but that approach seems only feasible for devices with fixed IP addresses. My current hosts file just contains my Pi-hole's name, so Pi-hole has to retrieve host names from my router - hence my question how Pi-hole d…

The solution likely exists already - use Pi-Hole as DHCP server. You can assign static leases, etc. [image] How do I use Pi-hole's built in DHCP server (and why would I want to)? FAQs Using Your Existing Router For Network-wide Ad Blocking You might not need …

I like your way of thinking, jfb - you really try to find a solution within the given limitations and available feature sets of Pi-hole :slight_smile: For now, I chose to follow your suggestion and enabled DHCP again, as it was helpful anyway when trying to assist with Pihole plus Guest Wifi on di…

one of the reasons I went with using PiHole as the master DHCP was because there are various paremeters on the ISP facing router that I can't edit/change. There are a) the hostname of the router b) change the static DNS issued by the router (it always tells clients to use itself and then it look…

@Bucking_Horn This might be helpful if you want Devices to have a more friendly host name but still be issued Dynamic IPs (although it does still need populating) At the bottom of the DHCP conf page in the web gui it says "Specifying the MAC address is mandatory and only one entry per MAC addres…

How to make Pi-hole pick a specific host name?

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jfb September 12, 2019, 10:36pm 8

The solution likely exists already - use Pi-Hole as DHCP server. You can assign static leases, etc.