Using a new RPi to create a Pihole on an old RPi

Can I use an RPI 2 to make an Rasbian image with Pi-hole already installed, put it in the mail to a friend, and have them boot their RPi 1 and then make it work?

The main difference not only being the slightly older RPi model (and different SD card format), but also a different DHCP environment...

Thnx for your help!

(The issue I am trying to solve here is: this friend really likes functionality of Pi-hole, but lacks the skills (and mostly patience) to set it up themselves and friend lives to far away to just drop by and do it together...)

It will boot and work normally, so the main issue is the different network. If you can setup his network credentials on the pi (if needed) and make sure it uses a static IP address (configured automatically during Pi-hole setup), then he should be able to plug it in and use it with that address. Make sure that you use the same interface (ex. eth0).

Its not recommended without doing a few other steps.
For example the private and public SSH keys will be the same so you will hand your friend the key to your door.
And for some instances, hardware MAC addresses could be hard coded causing issues.
And there are few other considerations.

Get a free WebEx account here and take control of your friends desktop if you invite him to a meeting:

Ps. I noticed the page scrols down a bit to, what feels like, hide the "Start Free" button.

Got this cleanup from another project (needs to run as root user):

#!/bin/sh

rm -f /home/pi/*.log
for f in $(find /var/log -type f); do echo > $f; done
find / -xdev -iname \*.DS_Store | xargs rm -f
apt-get autoclean
apt-get autoremove
apt-get clean
rm -f /home/pi/.bash_history
rm -fr /home/pi/.cache
rm -fr /home/pi/.local
rm -fr /home/pi/.config
rm -f /root/.bash_history
rm -fr /root/.cache
rm -fr /root/.local
rm -fr /root/.config
rm -f /etc/apt/preferences.d/media
rm -fr /home/pi/.mc
rm -fr /root/.mc
rm -fr /root/.ssh
rm -fr /home/pi/.ssh
mountpoint -q /run || rm -fr /run/*
rm -fr /tmp/*
rm -fr /var/tmp/*
rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/*-old
rm -f /var/cache/debconf/*-old
rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*
history -c
umount /mnt/*
rmdir /mnt/*

This is fine, since he is not only sending him this key via mail, but also the door including the lock with a full clone. If he makes sure that he doesn't have a door with the same lock at home (i.e. he sends the image, but doesn't use it himself afterwards), there is nothing to worry about (as long as your fried trusts you, of course).

Sending the Pi as hardware to you, so you can set it up and sending it back, might be much easier and less errorprone. Also, he could simply set up a strong password for SSH and forward the port for you, so you can log in on his Pi and do the work. Or use a remote desktop controlling software as @deHakkelaar recommended. I myself would never do that, but opinion (and the "personal threat level" :tm: ) differ

4 posts were split to a new topic: Discussion about closed software

Thanx for all the tips!

I think I'll go with a screen sharing option. Luckily there are many FLOSS alternatives available, like meet.jit.si, that doesn't even require you to install anything but a compatible webbrowser :slight_smile:

Thats exactly the requirements for WebEx, a compatible browser and I believe an ActiveX plugin for the browser gets loaded.

WebRTC is pretty awesome. But I am afraid this is getting a little off-topic :slight_smile: