What it does#

Pi-hole acts as a DNS sinkhole that blocks ads, trackers, and telemetry domains at the network level. Every device on the LAN gets ad-free browsing without needing browser extensions. Two instances run in parallel for redundancy — if one goes down, DNS still works.

Runs on#

🍓 Raspberry Pi 4B + 💻 Old Laptop (one instance each)

Stack#

ComponentDetails
Imagepihole/pihole:latest
Instances2 (primary + secondary)
Port53 (DNS), 80 (web UI)

Config highlights#

  • Both instances use the same blocklists for consistency
  • Router configured with both Pi-hole IPs as DNS servers
  • Web dashboard available for monitoring query logs and blocked domains
  • Custom local DNS entries for homelab services (e.g., grafana.home.lan)