Pihole not working either network-wide nor when setting single PC to use it as DNS

Help
1

Expected Behaviour:

Pi-hole allowing any traffic through in any form.

Hardware:
Belkin N150 Wireless Router - Model: F9K1001v5 (01B)
This is a router connected to the house's modem/router
Raspberry Pi 3
Fresh SD card
Ethernet connection

Process:
Fresh install of Raspbian Stretch Lite
sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, etc
change /etc/dhcpcd.conf to pastebin_1 to set static IP (that works at least though eth0 seems to have been renamed enxb827eb8e5ac8. I don't know what is too much sharing for the results of ifconfig so I'll not paste that here unless requested)
run curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash I don't remember my specific settings but I chose the defaults for everything including enxb827eb8e5ac8 over wlan0

set ufw so that ufw status outputs

Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
22                         ALLOW       Anywhere
53                         ALLOW       Anywhere
80                         ALLOW       Anywhere
22 (v6)                    ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)
53 (v6)                    ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)
80 (v6)                    ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

I changed my router's DNS Address to 192.168.2.145 and have tried setting the backup to 192.168.2.145, 8.8.8.8, 0.0.0.0 (all based on sources I read), but all my devices say that there is no internet access. When I try to ping 192.168.2.1 (router address) from my pi, all packets fail. Same result with 8.8.8.8.

I then read about changing the DNS server of a single device on the network to the IP of the pi so I did that with my PC according to the instructions here, but that didn't work either. No traffic was able to pass through to the internet.

I believe that the issue may be related to the fact that my router only has a DNS setting in the WAN section rather than also in the LAN section. Source1 Source2

Actual Behaviour:

I read hours upon hours of help topics on here, github, and reddit and had 50+ tabs open and tried then undid everything they suggested, but I wasn't able to figure it out. I got rather frustrated until I decided that Maybe I should just write my own help ticket. So this is what I am doing. I am happy to retry anything in order to give more info and as a last resort, maybe even DD-WRT my router. I can post screenshots and pastebins of whatever is needed as long as I am comfortable not giving personal info away :slight_smile:

Debug Token:

avyhs6d63n with router DNS set to 8.8.8.8 and everything working dandily connection wise
3bnum9y31s with router DNS set to 192.168.2.145, but I had to switch my router DNS back to 8.8.8.8 in order to get it to upload

Thanks!

P.S. I will try to implement any suggestions ASAP, but I may not always be near my pi.

2

I see you found my old Post. My $80 D-Link firmware was too simplistic and was the root cause of my pihole issues. For only $20 you can find many very good used routers in eBay that are compatible with dd-wrt and pi hole... I can't recommend those enough. A Cisco/Linksys ea2500 (correction - EA6500) has been working for me for over a year, no trouble.
_
I had a Belkin N150 also, don't recall if it worked with pihole or not, but it wasn't dd-wrt-able.... I think I kept it just as a backup router should my main one die.

3

Thanks for the response! I will look into a new (used) router.

Is there a list of pi-hole-able routers? I feel like a crowd-sourced list might be very doable for the great community.

4

I think since you can't set LAN DNS that is the smoking gun that your Belkin just can't direct traffic to the PI.

I had the same frustrating experience even w/ the "higher end" D-LINK, which I also bricked trying to go to DD-WRT. I have no regrets w/ my <$40 used cisco EA6500 - it accepted dd-wrt w/ no trouble. The hardest part was digging for the right dd-wrt files.
_
Here is my guess - "any" DD-WRT compatible router SHOULD have LAN DNS settings whether or not you put DD-WRT on it; but if for some reason the stock firmware lets you down - swap to DD-WRT and you're golden.
_
In my experience the cisco/linksys are cheaper and robust vs. the other brands. Even the 'true-dual' bands are pretty cheap, even the faster wifi standards (AC1200 and greater).
_
dd-wrt compatible routers
filtered ebay listings

5

It just occurred to me that this doesn't address the issue that my PC couldn't access the internet when I set its DNS server address directly to the pi. Or does it? My intuition says that it doesn't, but you would know better.

6

Even though your computer is asking to resolve DNS via Pi, it still has to go through your router before getting to the Pi, and your router will simply re-direct DNS to your WAN (internet provider) or just ignore the DNS IP request. I still think it's a router issue. It's pretty rare to run a DNS server for 90%+ of homes, so a lower end router doesn't give you control over DNS routing; but a better router should/will. To remove all doubt - be sure to buy one for the DD-WRT compatible list... or you can even buy routers on ebay pre-installed w/ DD-WRT (or Tomato or your hipster firmware of choice).
_
If you find a router you like you can probably research the available settings - but that might be unnecessary work.