Running Pi-hole kit (Rasp 4 Model B) on Ethernet to act as domain blocker and limit advertisements without slowing down internet.
Actual Behaviour:
So I'm not actually sure if A. the pi-hole and router are configured correctly and B. It seems to be slowing down the internet when browsing the likes of social media. After performing a speedtest, my speeds seem normal but I'm not convinced the Pi-hole is setup correctly on the LAN.
I have a Zyxel EX5401-B1, where I've configured our upstream DNS from the ISP provided one to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1 / 1.0.0.1), set a static DHCP of .100 to the Pi-hole and in the router, configured Network Setting > Home Networking > LAN Setup.
AFAIK this is setup correctly but I'm doubting myself, blaming my problems on user error.
My setup is an ISP provided ONT and router. ONT > Zyxel EX5401-B1 > LAN (5-port UM Switch > Pi-hole).
I've restarted the router and ONT several times to release the DHCP lease and also rebooted my phone to test it. Oddly enough, the domain I've blocked seems to be working fine.
Most likely, someone with more experience will reply to your post, but I just wanted to reply with whatever knowledge I have.
For me, when I first set up Pi-hole, I did the same thing as you and changed the DNS on the DHCP Server settings. It worked, although I did get some slack from the ISP, mostly their complaints were that we had outdated routers (legend has it we still use the exact same setup even today, same routers). Obviously, this depends on your ISP, but I hope this gives you some hope.
Unfortunately, most likely, your ISP will not approve of this, since they provided the DNS, although if you can get Pi-hole running, it should not cause network problems, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
I don't know if this helps or not, but if you have concerns about replacing ISP-mandated settings, you can set only one (or some) of your devices to use Pi-hole's DNS instead.
On the speed issue, Pi-hole is a non-recursive DNS Server, meaning it forwards requests to another DNS server, as set in your Pi-hole Settings. The speed loss should be negligible, and should easily be made up for by blocked ads.
Also, it might help to get some information of how you set up Pi-hole. Based on what you said, it appears to not block domains:
Thanks for the info and log. It all looks good. Pi-hole has the IP you mention, the router is the DHCP server and is giving out just the Pi-hole address to clients to use for DNS. Pi-hole's self test shows it blocking domains correctly, and the snippet of log included shows clients making requests of it, so it all looks good.
When you say "the domain I've blocked seems to be working fine", do you mean that it is indeed blocking as expected, or that it is not blocking? The two block rules are okay.
Note there is no need to reset the ONT. The ONT should remain powered on.
chrislph and BengalEmpire767 thanks for your replies (unfortunately I can't tag you both due to being a new user, sorry!)
So as it turns out, the Pi-hole was setup correctly and it wasn't user error! All day yesterday we had internet issues, and after speaking to the ISP for about 4/5 hours, it turns out we had a faulty router. Most interestingly though, they're admitting to a fault on their end, but won't tell us what the fault actually is.
We ditched the ISP provided one and opted for a store bought one (Archer AX12) and it works like a dream. Nice, simple and easy to setup once we rang the ISP again to reconfirm our PPPoE settings. The throughput on the LAN ports is 1Gbps which is what we have, though there's only three ports. Thankfully we have a 32-channel switch controlling the rest of the ethernet devices.
I'm now running the DHCP allocation through the Pi-hole as opposed to the router, the domain blocking works a treat and we're not suffering from slow speeds.
Thanks for your input regardless guys, really appreciate it.
The address bar says skips two (most likely deleted) replies? What happened 'ere? (Most likely a random conversation, but I am too curious for my own good really.)
Edit:
That means it was serious. Don't look too deep into it. Congrats on your new router though.
Oh. Well, still, I hope your experience with Pi-hole will be as good as everyone else's. Once it works, it just does, it's like magic. For years on end.
