Pi-hole as default DNS on Netgear Orbi

[Donald_E_Smith]

Please follow the below template, it will help us to help you!

Expected Behaviour:

[Replace this text with what you think should be happening]

Actual Behaviour:

[replace this text with what is actually happening]

Debug Token:

[Replace this text with the debug token provided from running pihole -d (or running the debug script through the web interface]

[Donald_E_Smith]

I wasted much time "assuming" the DNS addresses in the Netgear Orbi were actually prioritize. I'd put the Pi-hole as Primary, then rolled down my ISP's primary & secondary to the secondary & third slots. Trying to have these as autobackup when/if the Raspberry Pi was not available. Turns out the Orbi would then just use the addresses it knew, not sending most requests to Pi-hole. Before giving up and deciding Pi-hole didn't work, I tried removing the other DNS addresses from the router and found the real problem. Here's hoping this helps others? Have posted this with Netgear but not expecting speedy results?

DES

[jacob.salmela]

See also:

Why should Pi-hole be my only DNS server?

Reduced Ad Blocking Capability The main reason you should Pi-hole as your only DNS server is that you will see increased performance in the blocking of ads. If you have two DNS servers (Pi-hole and something else), your network clients may not always query Pi-hole for name resolution. If a query happens to be answered from a non-Pi-hole DNS server, your block lists will not apply (since that DNS server doesn't know about them). All Queries Need To Go Through Pi-hole First Since other DNS se…

[Donald_E_Smith]

I understand this. It's a matter of interpretation of Primary, Secondary, etc. I thought, incorrectly in the case of the Orbi, these multiple address would be prioritized. Primary would be used if available, etc., down the chain. And the others would be there as backup. I'm told Netgear uses dnsmasq which even has a prioritizing option which apparently isn't used. But in my opinion should be!