Pihole not receiving clients, not blocking anything

Help
1

Expected Behaviour:

Pihole to work, recieve clients, and block ads. None of the above is happening. I have set my modem to use my pi as the only DNS server(s), and port 53 is open in my pi's firewall. I have Pihole v5.11.4, with AdminLTE version 5.13 and FTL version 5.16.1. Pihole is running on my Raspberry pi 0 W, running Raspbian Buster.

Actual Behaviour:

Pihole is running okay, but is recieving no clients and blocking no ads on any of my devices. DNS seems to be working fine, and I can access websites despite seemingly not going through Pihole.
Running nslookup gives me the following:

$ nslookup pi.hole
Server:		127.0.0.53
Address:	127.0.0.53#53

** server can't find pi.hole: NXDOMAIN

$ nslookup google.com
Server:		127.0.0.53
Address:	127.0.0.53#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	google.com
Address: 172.217.165.14
Name:	google.com
Address: 2607:f8b0:400b:807::200e

This leads me to believe that devices simply aren't using the DNS server I specified in my modem settings, but I do not know how I would resolve this.

Debug Token:

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/4fFhwzXD/

2

How do your clients know to use Pi-hole? Your DHCP server (your router) is not distributing the IP of Pi-hole for DNS.

*** [ DIAGNOSING ]: Discovering active DHCP servers (takes 10 seconds)
   Scanning all your interfaces for DHCP servers
   Timeout: 10 seconds
   
   * Received 336 bytes from wlan0:192.168.2.1
     Offered IP address: 192.168.2.245
     Server IP address: N/A
     Relay-agent IP address: N/A
     BOOTP server: (empty)
     BOOTP file: (empty)
     DHCP options:
      Message type: DHCPOFFER (2)
      server-identifier: 192.168.2.1
      lease-time: 86400 ( 1d )
      netmask: 255.255.255.0
      router: 192.168.2.1
      dns-server: 192.168.2.1
      renewal-time: 43200 ( 12h )
      rebinding-time: 75600 ( 21h )
      broadcast: 192.168.2.255
         domain-name: "home"
      --- end of options ---
    
   DHCP packets received on interface wlan0: 1
   DHCP packets received on interface lo: 0

Your Pi-hole appears to be at this IP:

wlan0 (192.168.2.245)

The output of your nslookup command is expected, since the Pi itself is not using Pi-hole for DNS. It is using the router and another DNS that is not Pi-hole.

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 76 Jul 17 01:30 /etc/resolv.conf
   nameserver 192.168.2.1
   nameserver 207.164.234.193
3

How do I ensure that my router distributes the IP? As I said, I have set the DNS in my router's configuration to the Pi-hole(Both primary and secondary). Also, the results of nslookup I posted are from my computer, not the pi. I also have an app on my android phone that shows the DNS server, and it just shows the router's IP.

4

The computer is not using Pi-hole for DNS. It is using a DNS server on it's local loopback address.

From this computer, what are the outputs of the following:

nslookup pi.hole 192.168.2.245

nslookup flurry.com 192.168.2.245

After you made this change, did you renew the DHCP lease on all clients?

5 
$ nslookup pi.hole 192.168.2.245
Server:		192.168.2.245
Address:	192.168.2.245#53

Name:	pi.hole
Address: 192.168.2.245
Name:	pi.hole
Address: fe80::2d98:a63:f9c5:541e

$ nslookup flurry.com 192.168.2.245
Server:		192.168.2.245
Address:	192.168.2.245#53

Name:	flurry.com
Address: 0.0.0.0
Name:	flurry.com
Address: ::

After you made this change, did you renew the DHCP lease on all clients?
Originally I did not, however I just did. Doesn't seem to have made a difference.

6

The problem appears to be in your router settings for DHCP. The latest nslookup results you posted show that the client uses Pi-hole when the queries are specifically directed at Pi-hole (which overrides the client DNS settings).

7

Would using Pi-hole's DHCP help? If not, what other DHCP settings could affect this? The ones my router gives me access too are the IP range and the lease duration, as well as the ability to disable DHCP.

8

Likely yes. Disable DHCP on your router and enable it on Pi-hole.

I can't tell you since I know nothing about your router.

9

I disabled my router's DHCP, and enabled Pi-hole's, and tried to reconnect to the network on my phone. After trying to connect for a while, it failed with the error "Failed to obtain IP address". After re-enabling my router's DHCP and disabling Pi-Hole's, it was able to connect right away. Is there other setup I need to do for Pi-hole's DHCP to work?

10

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