Pihole not sending DHCP lease to devices on network.

Help docker
1

I have an AT&T Router that does not allow changing the DNS of the router itself, so I’m trying out the DHCP solution I’ve found in my research. I’m running my Pihole on Docker on my previous Windows PC that I am now using as a novice Home Server. (Fresh Windows 11 install, the only thing on it is Docker and AnyDesk) This PC is wired to the router.

I believe I’ve set up everything properly, my Pihole IP is manually set to 192.168.1.7 and my router IP is 192.168.1.254, so my DHCP range is 10-253, leaving myself some space if I end up getting a dedicated rasPi for anything. When I turn off the DHCP on the router and attempt to get a new lease on my Desktop in my room (also wired to the router) , it timeouts and my Desktop is left with a dead IP, still connected to the internet though. Here is what I think is the most relevant part of the debug:

*** [ DIAGNOSING ]: Discovering active DHCP servers (takes 6 seconds)
Scanning all your interfaces for DHCP servers and IPv6 routers
Timeout: 6 seconds

Error while sending Router Solicitation on eth0: Network unreachable
No answer on eth0

Token: https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/JA26JlMC/

I’ve seen others have success buying another router and either bridging/replacing the AT&T one, but I don’t wanna pour a couple hundred just to get the most basic Home Server thing working.

Lmk if there’s any other info I can provide that would be useful.

2

The Pi-hole docker container needs to be setup with the "host" or "macvlan" network driver to be able to function as a DHCP server:

And:

Host networking does not work with Windows containers.

Plus:

The macvlan driver only works on Linux hosts. It is not supported on Docker Desktop for Mac or Windows, or Docker Engine on Windows.

1 Like
3

Well like I said, there’s nothing on Windows other than Docker and now a Minecraft Server I wanted to try globally hosting. I should be able to move that over easy enough and then run the Pihole through linux properly. I’ll try that over the weekend and respond here with my results.

Thanks for the timely feedback!

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4

It doesnt matter if you run anything else on that MS box.
Its just that Docker on Windows cant do "host" or "macvlan" which is required to do DHCP bc of the broadcast nature of DHCP packets.
DNS, HTTP etc are all unicast.