Some (WiFi?) devices not showing in Top Clients (Linksys WRT1900ACS)

Could you please provide another screenshot of the dashboard's Top Clients?

This would imply that your Laptop is acting as expected, using Pi-hole as DNS as provided via DHCP.

Can you confirm that you did connect your laptop wirelessly through your WAP?

I hope so! :wink: There is no cat-5 cable plugged into it.

Unfortunately, that would leave no hints at why other devices on your network seem to use your gateway as DNS server.

A separate device, aggregating and forwarding DNS traffic to your gateway, could still explain that. Which brings me back to my previous yet unanswered question:

(Sorry, I thought I had answered that)

The WAP and router (192.168.0.254) are the same device.

CISCO 1900 ACS

I messed around and got a terminal working on my phone. (Smaller screen than tablet).

nslookup - command not found. :frowning:

Your screenshot above would rather imply a LinkSys device instead.

Sorry... Yes, Linksys. I have Cisco on the brain.

If there really is no separate WAP, then we are running out of options for explaining your observations.

This may be an issue with your network configuration.
Some routers would allow for guest networks that they isolate from the rest of the home network. Guest devices then would still see the router as DNS server.
Similar may apply if your router would support VLANs, and you'd have created such VLANs without setting DHCP DNS options for it, which also may result in VLAN devices still using your router for DNS.

Whether your router would allow for guest networks or VLANs and if and how it would allow to configure DNS for those would be specific for your router make, model and firmware.

You should consult your router's sources of information for further details.

Not to dismiss what you are doing. It is beyond my skills.

But with what you have shown me, when I connect the lappy to the network, it gets the IP address of 153 and I can then see it.

I tried with the tablet and my phone.

Given all else is good, then I should see new entries for them if I refresh the list - yes?

Ok, I get the guest network bit. But it is a different name. Not the one to which I am connecting.

AFAIK I haven't got VLANS set up. I was wanting to use this router for VLANS, but alas when (after) I got it, the VLANS aren't as accessible as I would like and aren't really usable.
They are for VOIP stuff.

I take it you refer to the nslookup commands.
Those are purely diagnostic, they don't change anything in your configuration, so they won't change your device's general behaviour.

I wasn't meaning to imply that.

I was just discussing that if I can connect the laptop and it sort of works. (Still not getting why it can't ping some of the online devices, but can others. Outside this scope sort of)

And I can see it in the PiHole page..... It is weird what is/was happening with the tablet.

I just tried with the phone (checked the router's page. it gets 152 address. Part of my DHCP pool). But PiHole doesn't get to see it when I make requests to gmail either.

So something is happening - as you said - that they may have their own DNS names.

Would I be able to see the DNS the phone is using (knowing its IP address) with wireshark?

Though it has been a long time since I used that.

A router will never send any DNS queries of its own in the first place.
(There are only a very few scarce exemptions to that).

Your LinkSys Linksys WRT1900ACS router named gateway with IP address 192.168.0.254 is sending thousands of DNS requests to Pi-hole.
This would imply that your router is forwarding DNS requests to Pi-hole as received by your clients, and it would be consistent with those clients not appearing themselves in Pi-hole.

We've verified that a WiFi client (your Win XP laptop) is using Pi-hole as DNS server upon connecting via WiFi, so your router's configuration is correct, at least for the WiFi network your laptop connected to.

Currently, other devices still do not show up, and gateway still seems to be sending DNS requests towards Pi-hole.

This could be explained by
a. clients not receiving DNS options via DCHP as they hold on to their previous leases (which we precluded)
b. clients using IPv6 to bypass Pi-hole (but then, your router shouldn't list any queries at all, apart from a few IPv4 DNS requests that would still commonly reach in Pi-hole)
c. clients being connected to a different subnet or VLAN than your laptop
d. mobile clients not using your local WiFi, but their mobile data network
e. some stray misbehaviour of your router

As your router is sending DNS queries to Pi-hole, you must have configured it to use Pi-hole as its upstream DNS. This would have been a different page than the DHCP settings for the local DNS server you posted as screenshot, likely a WAN related setting.

You could try to revert that option back to your router's default and see if that does something for your clients as well.

Apologies if I missed this in prior comments, but has @shykitten55 tried rebooting the gateway (Linksys router?), as well as maybe a trouble client or two? That should force a DHCP query from said client devices and could help?

Yes, ok. But I think - I know: Dangerous - that it (the Linksys) is calling home a lot to Belkin.

Now there are only ... 2 devices connect to the WAP. A RasPi and an Arduino board.
At this point in time on the entire network there are .... 7 devices.
1 - The router.
2 - .99 Ras Pi
3 - .83 Ras Pi - PiHole
4 - .93 Ras Pi (Wifi)
5 - .155 Arduino
6 - .6 This machine (NUC)
7 - .9 TV

Alas the router does Call home a fair bit - which is annoying but does explain why if the uplink dies, the WAP does so too. :frowning:

All these devices have had their DNS changed to .83.
Ok, I'll update that. The TV wasn't. But it was blocked from internet access at the router via Parental control.
It is now, but I hope it is still being blocked at the router's level.

The mobile devices (phone and tablet) only ever have their WiFi or LTE active when needed.
I just can't see why it is good to keep them active when not needed/being used.

I'm not really going to argue that. But that is the only place I can find in its config to set the DNS, on the page I showed you.

Sorry, quick loop back to the IP6 part. The router has IP6 clearly disabled.
So I really hope that that setting is not being over-ridden by anything.

Local time has just gone 22:00 local.

I think I may turn in soon. As much as I would like to continue this, I think it would/may be better I get a night's sleep soon.

So: If the phone/tablet have a third party DNS hard wired in to them..... would that be causing the problem?

Would I be able to catch it with wireshark?

Hi.

I haven't rebooted the router yet. (It is going to happen in 2 days time no matter what. There is going to be a power outage Sunday night).

So like it or not, that is going to happen. As much as it may be good to get it done now..... I'd prefer to wait for this outage to happen and deal with it then.

I am wanting to explore what the phone and tablet do when they are connecting to the network.

That is a whole other story. Can we PM this? (Though I don't know how much longer I am going to be awake today)

If third-party DNS is used on a client and you are not intercepting+redirecting port 53 on your router, that would be an explanation for why a client’s requests are not showing on your pi-hole.