What am I doing wrong? - Newbie

Hi all,

So I've never installed pihole before and I'm needing some guidance.

I cant seem to log into pihole, I keep getting:

This site can’t be reached
192.xxx.x.xxx refused to connect.
Try:

Checking the connection
Checking the proxy and the firewall
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

I set up the folder structure like this on my ugreen nas.

 volume1/docker/pihole
               /pihole
               /dnsmasq.d  

I started a new project in docker called 'pihole' and set the ymal to:

# More info at https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole/ and https://docs.pi-hole.net/
services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    ports:
      # DNS Ports
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      # Default HTTP Port
      - "8080:80/tcp"
      # Default HTTPs Port. FTL will generate a self-signed certificate
      - "4444:443/tcp"
      # Uncomment the below if using Pi-hole as your DHCP Server
      #- "67:67/udp"
      # Uncomment the line below if you are using Pi-hole as your NTP server
      #- "123:123/udp"
    environment:
      # Set the appropriate timezone for your location from
      # https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones, e.g:
      TZ: 'Europe/London'
      # Set a password to access the web interface. Not setting one will result in a random password being assigned
      FTLCONF_webserver_api_password: 'pihole'
      # If using Docker's default `bridge` network setting the dns listening mode should be set to 'ALL'
      FTLCONF_dns_listeningMode: 'ALL'
    # Volumes store your data between container upgrades
    volumes:
      # For persisting Pi-hole's databases and common configuration file
      - '/volume1/docker/pihole/pihole:/etc/pihole'
      # Uncomment the below if you have custom dnsmasq config files that you want to persist. Not needed for most starting fresh with Pi-hole v6. If you're upgrading from v5 you and have used this directory before, you should keep it enabled for the first v6 container start to allow for a complete migration. It can be removed afterwards. Needs environment variable FTLCONF_misc_etc_dnsmasq_d: 'true'
      #- './etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d'
    cap_add:
      # See https://docs.pi-hole.net/docker/configuration/#note-on-capabilities
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your DHCP server, else not needed
      - NET_ADMIN
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your NTP client to be able to set the host's system time
      - SYS_TIME
      # Optional, if Pi-hole should get some more processing time
      - SYS_NICE
    restart: unless-stopped

I pulled the latest image and started the service

This is the log output:

 pihole  |   [i] Setting up user & group for the pihole user
pihole  |   [i] PIHOLE_UID not set in environment, using default (1000)
pihole  |   [i] PIHOLE_GID not set in environment, using default (1000)
pihole  | 
pihole  |   [i] Starting FTL configuration
pihole  |   [i] No DNS upstream set in environment or config file, defaulting to Google DNS
pihole  |   [i] Assigning password defined by Environment Variable
pihole  |   [i] Starting crond for scheduled scripts. Randomizing times for gravity and update checker
pihole  | 
pihole  |   [i] Gravity migration checks
pihole  | 2026-08-20 08:54:15.570 BST crond: crond (busybox 1.37.0) started, log level 6
pihole  |   [i] No adlist file found, creating one with a default blocklist
pihole  |   [i] /etc/pihole/gravity.db does not exist (Likely due to a fresh volume). This is a required file for Pi-hole to operate.
pihole  |   [i] Gravity will now be run to create the database
pihole  |   [✗] DNS resolution is currently unavailable

I open a browser and type the url http://192.xxx.x.xxx:8080/admin and then I get this page and I don't know how to fix it. Can anyone help?

Your container doesn't seem to have DNS resolution.

Let's try to fix that adding dns: option to your compose file:

services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    dns: 8.8.8.8  # Set the container DNS. This is different Pi-hole Upstream server option
    ports:
      ...

Then, generate a debug log executing the following command on the Ugreen NAS terminal:

docker exec -it pihole pihole -d

When asked to upload, answer Y, then copy the Token and post it here.