What model Raspberry Pi should I use for Pi-hole?

running in docker or from source?
experienced any issues while installing/configuration?

Not in Docker. Zero problems with install or configure.

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I am not familiar with the details of the RPi family tree, but the board I am using was the first B type that went to manufacturing. It has 256K memory. The desktops that came with the early distros ran miserably slow so I tried using it as a headless mpd client. It sort of worked but there was often dropouts and/or buzzes that made it unfit for use. It was no better with music distros like Volumio and the like. It didn't want to work as a web camera server either. The USB implementation was a little wonky in some of the first boards. So, since 2011, this board mostly sat unused. Then I discovered PiHole. This board not only runs PiHole with AdBlocker but also is running a DHCP server and an NTP server for my network. Not to mention the web server for the browser interface. And it does so comfortably with an average CPU of about 33% and temperature of 48'. Finally found its calling. Just don't think about using VNC and playing with pictures. If it's not covered in the browser interface, then one needs to use ssh and the command line. Upgrading pegs the CPU at 100%, so it needs to be done during periods of light load and it does take a while. Otherwise, it just hums along doing what it does quite happily.

Are these on the same network? If so, how are they configured and what is the benefit of running two of them?

Thanks,

JAW

Two Pi-Holes in parallel provide redundancy. Each is configured the same (blocklists, black/white/regex lists), on different IP's on the network. The router has the IP of each Pi-Hole listed as DNS servers. Each of the Pi's is on a different UPS, so they can withstand a power outage along with the router, modem and switch.

I list the 3B+ first, and the ZeroW second. With my router and clients (mostly Apple stuff), almost all the DNS traffic goes to the 3B+ (which is listed first). If that Pi is down for updates, reboot, etc, then the Zero W picks up all the traffic and when the first Pi-Hole returns the traffic moves back to that.

In the last 24 hours, the 3B+ got 11,800 queries and the Zero got 67.

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Cool. Thank you for answering.

Do you have a script or other method of automatically syncing the settings between the Pi-Holes?

Interestingly, and disappointedly, my router only has one DNS server field for the LAN. The WAN has two, but if I change them to point to the Pi-Hole (which works), my internet won't come back up upon reboot unless I let the router find the ISP's servers automatically.

I will probably flash DD-WRT onto my router fairly soon, which should eliminate this issue.

No script. I don’t make local black/white/regex changes very frequently. When I do I just change both. The subscribed block lists update automatically by default.

Thanks for the info.

I also found this post of yours on the same topic.

[EDITED] - I see you use your Apple router for DHCP. I tried using my router for DHCP instead of my Pi-Hole and it didn't make a difference. I'm not sure why I can't get my router to use a second DNS server when I take my Pi-Hole down. Will keep playing with it.

–--–--–
@jfb – question; are either of your Pi-Hole's providing DHCP to your network?

As a test, to see if your setup might work for me, I set my DNS servers to my Pi-Hole with Cloudflare as a backup. But I get no DNS when I take my Pi-Hole offline. The Pi-Hole is providing DHCP, so I'm wondering if this could be the issue.

Given the use cases we discussed in the other thread. I'm thinking of configuring a second Pi-Hole using Cloudflare as both a backup and also to serve DNS to my VPN clients when on the local network.

Thanks for all your help on these topics.

Best,

JAW

No. But, you configure your Pi-Holes to each provide DHCP on non-overlapping ranges, and have each Pi-Hole advertise both itself and the other Pi-Hole for DNS.

It doesn't work quite this way with many routers. Clients will use any DNS provided to them, and some of your traffic will bypass Pi-Hole.

Understood. This was just to test the concept. I would eventually run two Pi-Holes.

I wasn't able to get Pi-Hole with a Cloudflare backup to work on my router. When I took down my Pi-Hole, instead of using Cloudflare, there was no DNS resolution at all.

I am going to flash a spare router with DD-WRT and see if I can get it to behave the way I want and if so, then I'll move forward with two Pi-Holes.

Thanks for your help.

Best,

JAW

I was a noob to Pi-hole and had one of those pesky pi's just lying around (probably just most of us and not knowing what to do with it).

It's a Pi v1, the early models.
I've got pi-hole running on it.

My performance metrics very rarely change from these:

Temp: 50.8 °C
Load: 0.11 0.14 0.1
Memory usage: 31.7 %

So, if you're worried about performance or capability.. if Pi-hole can run on this relic.. it will run on ANYTHING!

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So, my question is, even if pi hole will run on anything, what if any performance issues will other systems connected to the network see since we are adding a whole new system for the network traffic to go through?

Thats a wrong assumption:

Hi folks,
I'm using an old model "B" and it's working just fine!!!
The CPU load is around 8 and the worse case 10,8%.
The great issue is that it runs with low power consumption (800mA), no heat, no heatsinks, no noise... Just fine!

Got to mention:
My Rpi is set to work only in CLI mode and the total allocated
memory to GPU is the minimum allowed: 16MB (sudo RASPI-CONFIG).
So there's more Megs to CPU.
Congrats to the team, great job!!! :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:
Greetings from Brazil and FORA BOLSONARO!
:brazil:

Sorry, I mean:
Memory usage: 9.4 %
Load: 0.65 0.45 0.23

runs super on rpi 4 with 64bit great work guys :stuck_out_tongue:
44.3 c
load 0.16 0.18 0.18
memory usage 6.5%

this is with touch screen and all on and desktop gonna combine it with volumio

Running beautifully on RPi Zero W - I think even a Pi Zero is overkill in terms of raw power.

  • Running Pi-Hole, Unbound, Log2ram
  • BT, WiFi and HDMI disabled to save power (network connection over USB2LAN dongle) and with reduced RAM allocated to GPU (thx for the tip @EASchramm)
  • With heat sink in standard RPi housing

40.1 c
load 0.04 0.1 0.13
memory usage 13.6%

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I see people posting load from theirs RPis but only one person shared query amount.

Anyone using it on Rpi for big scale? I'm running it on PC, considering to switch to new Rpi but my workload worries me:
~300 000 queries / day
~4500 queries /10min peaks

All that, and Zabbix server monitoring local infrastructure. (over SNMP mostly).

Anyone would even dare to do this :crossed_fingers: ?