Going down the Pi-hole

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ShinyChrome

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#259934 31-Oct-2019 13:53

For a little project on the path to full r/homelab, I thought I'd give setting up a Pi-hole a shot.

I don't have anything lying around to use hardware-wise, so I figured I might as well go full Raspberry Pi.

I put together a rough list from PB-Tech (~$173 all up) of what I think I need. I looked at Amazon, but honestly the prices were so close, I'd rather just pay a little bit extra for a local retailer. I'll probably wait until Black Friday to see if there are any savings either way.

I know that while Pi-hole will run on a potato, I figured I might as well get the Pi 4 since there is not much in it for price between that and the 3, plus the higher specs and gbE port.

Are there any other local Pi suppliers worth looking at? Suggestions on better parts? Any traps for new players?

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#2346809 31-Oct-2019 14:13

try this http://www.mindkits.co.nz/raspberry-pi-4b-kit.aspx

or official store

https://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/little-bird-raspberry-pi-4-essentials-kit

helping others at evgenyk.nz

nzkc

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#2346811 31-Oct-2019 14:17

If you really want to stick with a Pi 4 - grab the 1GB model and save some money. PiHole isn't memory bound. Its really lightweight.

As for local retailers - PB Tech seem to be about the best at the moment. I've also purchased (or almost purchased) from:

Element 14 (https://nz.element14.com) though you'll need to pretend to be a business (you still pay GST)
Pishop (https://pishop.nz)
Mindkits (http://www.mindkits.co.nz)
Nice Gear (https://nicegear.nz)

In no particular order other than what I remembered!

gbwelly

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#2346821 31-Oct-2019 14:51

I just knocked up a hyper-v VM on my Windows 10 NUC, installed Debian minimal and did curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

If you have no server infrastructure then yeah, by all means grab a Raspberry Pi, but if you already have something which is on 24/7 anyway then keep your cash IMO.

Gurezaemon

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#2346870 31-Oct-2019 15:52

ShinyChrome:

For a little project on the path to full r/homelab, I thought I'd give setting up a Pi-hole a shot.

I don't have anything lying around to use hardware-wise, so I figured I might as well go full Raspberry Pi.

I put together a rough list from PB-Tech (~$173 all up) of what I think I need. I looked at Amazon, but honestly the prices were so close, I'd rather just pay a little bit extra for a local retailer. I'll probably wait until Black Friday to see if there are any savings either way.

I know that while Pi-hole will run on a potato, I figured I might as well get the Pi 4 since there is not much in it for price between that and the 3, plus the higher specs and gbE port.

Are there any other local Pi suppliers worth looking at? Suggestions on better parts? Any traps for new players?

Pi-hole will run on any Raspberry Pi, with minimal CPU overload.

I'm using a 1st generation Raspberry Pi from years ago, and it is at around 10% CPU utilization with 5 people using the network, topping out at 65 degrees, so the heat sink is absolutely not necessary, although it does look cool.
The gigabit ethernet port is also nice, but the Pi-hole frankly doesn't need it - DNS requests are tiny.
An official power supply is often recommended, but I'm powering mine from the USB port on the back of the router, and it is rock solid. Almost any power supply that provides (IIRC) more than 1 amp should be fine.
Using an earlier-generation second hand Raspberry Pi and bits that most geeks have lying around, a fully functioning Pi-hole should be attainable for $20-$30.

ShinyChrome

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#2346878 31-Oct-2019 16:01

kobiak:

try this http://www.mindkits.co.nz/raspberry-pi-4b-kit.aspx

or official store

https://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/little-bird-raspberry-pi-4-essentials-kit

Thanks for those. It looks like piaustralia seems to only ship to Aus, so I guess I would have to dick around with YouShop, but that mindkits kit looks pretty neat for the same price.

nzkc:

If you really want to stick with a Pi 4 - grab the 1GB model and save some money. PiHole isn't memory bound. Its really lightweight.

As for local retailers - PB Tech seem to be about the best at the moment. I've also purchased (or almost purchased) from:

Element 14 (https://nz.element14.com) though you'll need to pretend to be a business (you still pay GST)
Pishop (https://pishop.nz)
Mindkits (http://www.mindkits.co.nz)
Nice Gear (https://nicegear.nz)
In no particular order other than what I remembered!

Thanks, I'll take a gander at those. I came across most of them on the Google, but I must admit, was a little put off since they kinda looked a bit fly-by-night and I am fussy like that haha. Good to know someone has used them though.

I looked around for the 1GB model, but it seems we only have 2GB or 4GB locally. Since the cost difference was minimal ($15), I figured I might as well spring for the 4GB. I don't know if I can hang more things off it, but I figure it also means I can keep it around for longer or re-use it for something else in future.

gbwelly:

I just knocked up a hyper-v VM on my Windows 10 NUC, installed Debian minimal and did curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

If you have no server infrastructure then yeah, by all means grab a Raspberry Pi, but if you already have something which is on 24/7 anyway then keep your cash IMO.

That had crossed my mind, as I have also been thinking about about making a pfsense box for a while and could just combine those two and run it off a NUC or the like.

But then again, I was also curious to have a play with a Raspberry Pi, since I figured I can always re-use it for something else smart-home-automation-ee thing if I decide to go with the former option.

Dynamic

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#2346879 31-Oct-2019 16:03

Silly question... I've been curious about Pi-hole but have not tried it to date. With the Ad-block extension for Chrome, some web sites refuse to display unless you disable Ad-block. In some cases I add an exception, and in some cases I just move on to a different site. Will the same thing happen with Pi-hole, and if so can users easily work around this?

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ben28

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#2346881 31-Oct-2019 16:18

I run mine on an orange Pi zero. $16 from AliExpress
Suggest you fire up a virtual server to give it a go for free
That way you’ll see what it doesn’t block for zero cost.

US $12.38 | Orange Pi Zero Set4:Orange Pi Zero512MB+Protective White Case H2 Quad Core Open-source development board beyond Raspberry Pi
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/eXFQX6SU

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shrub

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#2346904 31-Oct-2019 17:22

I was using Pi-Hole for many years on a pi3. Since going down the UnRaid road I had Pihole on there in a docker but have recently found a new one called AdGuard which is much better as its not as intrusive as pihole. Things like windows store now works. PiHole is great but for a household its rather annoying having to explain why you can not click on the first few links on Google searches etc.

dfnt

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#2346906 31-Oct-2019 17:32

Dynamic:
Silly question... I've been curious about Pi-hole but have not tried it to date. With the Ad-block extension for Chrome, some web sites refuse to display unless you disable Ad-block. In some cases I add an exception, and in some cases I just move on to a different site. Will the same thing happen with Pi-hole, and if so can users easily work around this?

The same would happen yes, but you can’t whitelist the site, you’d have to whitelist the whole domain that’s being blocked

Gurezaemon

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#2346911 31-Oct-2019 18:06

shrub:

PiHole is great but for a household its rather annoying having to explain why you can not click on the first few links on Google searches etc.

^This. Instead of using the PiHole on the router, I've individually configured devices that connect, so that only people who understand this issue use the filtering. Non-technology people get the unfiltered Internet. This approach works well enough.

JeremyNzl

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#2346915 31-Oct-2019 18:19

I've been running pihole as a vm for 3 years now, just threw adGuard on unraid for a look,

OMG not going back to pi-hole, very happy with 30mins of testing

dt

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#2346918 31-Oct-2019 18:32

JeremyNzl:

I've been running pihole as a vm for 3 years now, just threw adGuard on unraid for a look,

OMG not going back to pi-hole, very happy with 30mins of testing

very interested to know why? also are you using the subscription?

shrub

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#2346919 31-Oct-2019 18:40

Did not even realize there was a subscription on Unraid it just works via the Docker.

JeremyNzl

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#2346920 31-Oct-2019 18:44

Did not subscribe to anyting yet :-)

Issues were

Blocking google add suggestions in google search

Not blocking youtube ads

screwing up tvnz streaming,

I know these could be resolved with putting some time into custom rules, but I just threw on adguard, an hr ago,

No ads on youtube or tvnz, haven't tried FB yet.

Also upgrading pihole was a lottery as it would either crash or part update, leaving me to reroll the vm from scratch,

I loved the basic ad filtering hence why I perservered for so long with it.

I swear there was a discernable lagg with pihole also, not feeling the same about adguard after the change.

The parallel upstread dns looks good also.

But really happy for a 5min install in docker on unraid, might not have even been that long, running default settings no whitelists

dfnt

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#2346924 31-Oct-2019 19:04

From what I can see adguard home does the exact same thing pihole does?

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