somebody looked at the issue and replied, aparently there is no problem when using sqlite3 v3.38.5
I compiled, from source, this version (v3.38.5) on another system (identical OS and patchlevel)
and ran the commands, as specified in the reply
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/whotracksme/whotracks.me/master/whotracksme/data/assets/trackerdb.sql
sqlite3 ./whotracks.db < ./trackerdb.sql
the database is created without any problem. test:
sqlite3 ./whotracks.db "select * from tracker_domains where tracker like '24%';"
result (OK):
24-ads.com|24-ads.com|
24_7|247-inc.net|
24_7|d1af033869koo7.cloudfront.net|
24log|counter.24log.ru|
24smi|24smi.net|
24smi|24smi.org|
so, either the embedded version in pihole-FTL has a problem OR pihole-FTL doesn't handle '< ./trackerdb.sql' as it should...
Maybe there is a special method to allow pihole-FTL to process redirected input, that I don't know about.
@DL6ER Can you please lookin to this? Thanks for your time and effort.