Using PiHole with domain DNS/DHCP

Hi All - not sure if this is a 'help' or 'feature request'...

The setup:
A bit of an overkill, perhaps, but I have my home network configured as a domain using Microsoft SBS 2008 as domain controller (and Exchange server). It means (for one) that multiple device email works without a hitch. SBS is also the main DHCP and DNS server for the local network and uses (used) external forwarders to resolve WWW addresses. All good so far.
To 'protect' the whole local network, I have now configured the SBS DNS to use PiHole as the sole forwarder - with PiHole then forwarding to upstream DNS servers.
This all works pretty much flawlessly (thanks, PiHole coders!).
However, because all DNS queries presented to PiHole are coming from the SBS DNS, all the queries in the log show only the IP address of the DNS server, and PiHole is showing it only has one client! This makes it somewhat difficult to work out which client is generating which requests.

The question:
Is it possible for PiHole to show the originating client address/name instead of (or as well as) the address of the SBS server? Can it even determine that data? I am reticent to use PiHole as the main SBS DNS as it may cause issues with AD and Exchange clients. Or is there a way to configure PiHole as a domain DNS without losing the AD and other domain controller name resolution functionality?

Thanks!

Try configure your SBS DHCP service to hand out Pi-hole's IP address as a single DNS server to the clients.
Configure single custom upstream DNS server for Pi-hole to be your SBS DNS IP:

image

Uncheck below two on Pi-hole:

image

DNS path would look like so:

Client --> Pi-hole --> SBS DNS --> Upstream configured DNS server(s)

That way the clients will query Pi-hole directly and you'll see individual stats.

This topic was automatically closed 21 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.