Prevent a specific group from contributing to query log

[jademonkee]

Hi there,
I installed the latest pi-hole (Pi-hole v5.2.3, Web Interface v5.3, FTL v5.4) a couple days ago using the install script on an old RPi 2B.
Workin' great so far.
My wife works in advertising (shudder), so I've created a sort of "DMZ" group with no block lists assigned to it and placed her work laptop in it. It's working great for her, and is causing no ad blocks. Perfect.
However, her laptop is noisy and constantly phoning home. As such, my query log is cram-packed with noise from her machine, which makes it difficult to wade through when I'm looking for an entry, and it also messes up my stats (for instance, adding a lot of entries into the "top permitted domains" section that shouldn't really be there, and placing her machine at the top of the clients lists).
Is it possible to prevent members of a specific group from from making entries into the query log and appearing in the statistics?
I dug around, searched and searched, but can find no mention of this possibility.
Thanks all for your help!

[jfb]

@jademonkee

also messes up my stats (for instance, adding a lot of entries into the "top permitted domains" section that shouldn't really be there, and placing her machine at the top of the clients lists)

This is actually an accurate report of the stats.

@jademonkee

Is it possible to prevent members of a specific group from from making entries into the query log and appearing in the statistics?

No. Queries are logged equally for all clients per your privacy settings. You can remove clients and domains from the "top lists" only, but the queries will still be shown elsewhere in the dashboard and in the overall statistics.

The best solution for you would be to manually assign that laptop a DNS other than Pi-hole, if you can on a work laptop. Many times you don't have the administrator permissions to do this on a work-owned machine, but if you can, do this. If you manually assign a DNS other than Pi-hole, then that machine will not appear in the Pi-hole logs at all.

If you cannot do this on the laptop, and if you use the Pi-hole as DHCP server, you can make a dnsmasq configuration file that will assign that machine (by MAC address) a different DNS other than Pi-hole.

How can I use Pi-hole for all my devices except one (or more)?

Configuring your router's DHCP options to force clients to use Pi-hole as their DNS server is the quickest way to get all of your network devices to use Pi-hole. But what if you want a certain device to not use it? Perhaps a family member is frustrated with white or blacklisting sites. Or maybe you want to log queries for all network devices except for a few. Solution The solution is to manually set the DNS server to on the device you don't want to use Pi-hole with. Setting the DNS server o…

Another option could be to set up a guest network on your router that doesn't use Pi-hole, and put the laptop on that network.

[jademonkee]

Thanks for the info.
I already have the laptop on a guest network, so I'll see if I can assign a different DNS for that network - that's a really good idea. I can't change the DNS on the laptop for the reason you assumed, and I'm not using pi-hole for my DHCP - though I may make the switch if I can't assign a different DNS on the guest network.
Cheers.