**The issue I am facing:**I do not know exactly, but at my home and at my girlfriends house I had Pi-hole installed for two years without any problem. All of a sudden and because we do not use tvbox often, my girlfriend noticesd that the box did not work. As an old network and system administrator I dug immediately into this and finally replace the pi-holes ip adres in the internet router with the routers itself, everything worked again.
Going to the pihole's webpage I saw in the tools section a remark sign, reading it, not telling me anything that I could do, except send the debug file. So I started this on both pi-holes, and both failed to send it.
Details about my system: A simple raspberrypi one (the small one, both!)
What I have changed since installing Pi-hole: Tried to upload the debugfile because it's routing blocked my internet traffic on devices that were turned off and was of use sudden.
I changed the routers DNS to the router's own ipadres to circumvent this.
Yah think? I should check my Windows server too, that is running for 9 years without ANY problem software wise.
Think I'm gonna pull the plug on this project because I don't know how to update something that I am not aware of. You Linux boys and girls make all the time fizzy little projects on this os, and we are lured in by nice commercialized triggers and 80% of us does absolutely no know what we deal with.
So it is fair to say, the update action in the PI, I also had to look up, and the way I use it, checking once every month or so, does give a good indication that we want to try this, keep it running, but truly as far as Pi-hole goes, the putty link and the webpage? That is all I know.
So anyone that can tell me ho to upgrade/update the underlying OS? Please tell us.!
Never mind me, looked and found it. Vaguely remember this action from year before, but as I may point out, this should be implementable into the webpage. Even Novell had early 2000 a tool that could be started on the server to update it and on a external computer through network from other side of the world. Linux on the other hand does still not have this similar technique at hand, sadly.
Last year I had problems with an updated Pi-hole which was running on an older version of Pi OS based on Debian Stretch. Pi-hole stopped supporting Stretch and my installation started breaking down. It had worked for a couple of years before that.
I mention that because if you have had it running for two years then chances are that you are in a similar position. Your base OS needs to be updated. The simplest and quickest way to do this is to take a backup of your settings and then re-image the SD card with the latest Pi OS and perform a fresh installation. Use the Pi Imager tool for the simplest way to do that. Finally, reimport your settings.
To back up your settings use the Teleporter feature. You can do this in the web admin interface in Settings > Teleporter > Backup. This saves a .tar.gz file which you can import later from the same page. Or from the command line it's pihole -a -t and then transfer the file out or save it on a USB stick.
As @wd9895 says it's perhaps worth using a new SD card too, but since you have it you might as well see how you get on with the existing one to start with as it's almost certainly just a case of you running an old OS. Once the base OS is back up to date you'll be good for point releases for some time.
I am still confused here, yesterday I found a link on the internet that gave the ability to manually change the DNS on the Pi through PuTTY so that I could change the internal DNS from 127.0.0.1 to 9.9.9.9 and that helped in finding the updates.
If it were this simple, now that I need that link again, can not find it, why not make it simpeler?
EDIT SETUPVARS.CONF ????? Why not like this? so that EVERYBODY that has a DIRECT LINE ACCESS to the Pi be able to change that. We need a password to get into the Pi?
We need knowledge how to connect and roam around on the Pi?
We know how and where it is located in the building?
So why all the difficult Sudo-shit that makes it so much easier????
I'm sorry community, you next gen Linux user whatever flavour you want, are so off!, that you forget the greater community that loves to use it but hits their head against these little stupid things.
I have seen Linux programs that were much better programmed (not that I say Pihole is bad, no, absolutely not) but it can need an overhaul on settings on the webpage, if there is a difference between normal viewing and "THE ADMIN PAGE" that is being asked as soon as you enter the webpage, then it would be so simple to build a 'normal user' and the 'admin user' in the webserver of the Pi, and via that page also alter it's vital settings like its own ip adres, DNS and gateway!
So, this won't happen ofcourse, because I have asked this similar question earlier and by my knowledge it never came to the developers. Shame that this could be so helpfull, so much better for a wider and untrained community, that the chances of getting more donations..... are gone!
Ask the community if they would appreciate such change.
So are you upset about Linux or are you upset about Pihole (or both)? I for one agree with you that a lot of the "tricks" in Linux can be hard to come by for a multi-decade DOS/Windows user, and Pihole can be improved upon. However, Pihole is, apparently, run as a labor of love from the developers who really don't get directly compensated for their time. As such, patience is the key. There are some things it can't do now but may be able to in the future (by using the appropriate Suggestions features here and soliciting feedback/votes), and there are other things it likely won't ever do -- in which case you might be better served finding another solution that fits the need.
The specific point you referenced about changing the DNS from 127.0.0.1 to 9.9.9.9 -- I see this tip get raised by the devs often and it fixes a very definite issue, but not being a dev myself, I don't know how difficult or practical it would be to expose this "switch" to the GUI or an easier method to change. It may be a time-constraint issue, also.
If you weren't aware of the need to run Pihole on a supported OS (or rather, not being able to run updates to Pihole on an OS that is no longer supported by the writers of the OS), then you, like I, didn't read or believe the Pihole release notes. Yes, I ran into the same issue last summer when Stretch dropped from the supported OS list, and I had to update the OS to run the then-current Pihole release. Frustrating, but when viewed through the lens of understanding the resources available to develop and support Pihole, I accepted this and moved forward.
So as a community member, if asked "would I appreciate such a change," yes. I don't feel entitled to it, but I would appreciate it. As I do all the work that's put into this project.
I am not a person who bashes out to the ones that make this kind of software, it is in my opinion the handicap to use that makes it so more difficult.
One moment I thought you were gonna tell me that they need money, don't we all. I have almost 20 years now several sorts of servers running from home and nobody ever gave me a single cent to compensate, so, this is not a fast way to slip this by but just a reminder that I do also things for free, and it would break my heart if noone would use my effort. That is something the devs of Pi-Hole can't say, plenty people who benefit from their work.
As a multi-decade DOS/Windows/Novell/Server administrator, I had my shares of agony. Seeing Linux rise up from the bootcamp of where it all started, it is for a person like me with all this timeline of 'things go better and easier to do what needs to manage this' then I see all these linux flavours in small contraptions like a pi zero, pi-one and the other pi's, running software that is amazing think-work and programming (how they fit it all in there) I still hope they are willing to make things user friendly.
I hope that they at least can address to these OS problems, because that would be great.
(A simple Pi-Hole webpage reminder maybe?)
P-hole deliberately does not make changes with the underlying OS. We assume that before you installed Pi-hole that you had your OS set up the way you want it.
If you don't want your host OS (the OS on which Pi-hole is running) to use Pi-hole, make the appropriate changes at the OS level.
In your case, you are running Raspbian Buster. Edit file /etc/dhcpcd.conf and change the nameserver to something other than the loopback IP (127.0.01).
What if it is a all-in-one package to download and install? Mostly done so?
(just an assumption that seems real to me, as I know shit about linux flavours, therefor I usually take complete distro's for the hardware I have.
Did you mean Pi-hole should create a distro image with Pi-hole pre-installed?
If this was your idea, what will an user do when Pi-hole releases a new version?
Wipe the whole Operating System and install the new one? What happens to every other service installed on the OS?
Pi-hole can be installed on many different distros using a single line command. Also, Pi-hole can run on even more operating systems using the docker image.
That's no problem, there is no obligation to use Pi-hole. The answers given here will still help other people in future, even those who are not skilled multi-decade DOS/Windows/Novell/Server administrators, running two-year-old abandoned installations, such as yourself.
And for people to know that while the Operating System is free, the Pi-hole software is free, the Pi-hole support for both our software and the operating system is free that doesn't mean you don't have to put in some effort to make it all work.
I don't get how the equivalent of screaming at the people that made your car radio because it didn't tell you to change the engine oil every year or so could ever be seen as productive.
Or to put it in Windows terms, Excel doesn't install the drivers to let you print your spreadsheets, you still have to run Windows utilities and install Windows updates.