So is custom.list completely ignored now?

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1

So is custom.list completely ignored now? If I want to change DNS entries without the GUI, i.e. edit pihole.toml I can. Then I just restart the Pihole service, i.e. systemctl restart pihole-FTL.service?

2

custom.list isn't ignored, but as that file's header mentions, you can't edit it, as it will be populated by Pi-hole automatically:

~ sudo cat /etc/pihole/hosts/custom.list 

# Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
# (c) 2025 Pi-hole, LLC (https://pi-hole.net)
# Network-wide ad blocking via your own hardware.
#
# Custom DNS entries (HOSTS file)
#
##################################################################################
#                                                                                #
#                     FILE AUTOMATICALLY POPULATED BY PI-HOLE                    #
#    ANY CHANGES MADE TO THIS FILE WILL BE LOST WHEN THE CONFIGURATION CHANGES   #
(…)

Pi-hole populates it with the definitions from the dns.hosts section of /etc/pihole.toml, e.g.:

# Pi-hole configuration file (v6.1)
# Encoding: UTF-8
# This file is managed by pihole-FTL
# Last updated on 2025-05-30 12:31:03 CEST

[dns]
(…)
  hosts = [
    "127.0.0.1 mylocal",
    "192.168.0.1 therouter"
  ] ### CHANGED, default = []

Pi-hole monitors pihole.toml, so any changes to your dns.hosts should be picked up automatically.

3

I had ansible replacing the custom.list so such notation was lost at some point in the past. Given that at one time you could edit it and then run restartdns, past version of pihole allowed this. This question was just to confirm that the new process to custom DNS outside the GUI was as I noted. Thanks for the confirmation.