Pi-Hole Discussion Thread

[Jurong640]

I don't find a local thread discussing on Pi Hole. I learned about Pi Hole from some guys here and on Reddit.

Yesterday, I successfully made one Pi-Hole myself with a cheap Orangepi Zero3 using LAN connection to my router. Effectively blocking ads, tracking, malicious, malware and other suspicious website.

As opposed to RaspberryPi for Pi Hole which most people use it, I attempted to use OrangePi for my project. It's small and effective chip, bought a case and small cooler fan in the case.

Yesterday, tried updating the adlist from various source, firebog, hagezi from GitHub, and added some list which broke my mobile Facebook webpage. I had to troubleshoot and re-add all the list one by one.

Any one has recommendation of good and stable list other than firebog and hagezi?
Also, if anyone with knowledge about Pi-Hole, can share more about how to fully utilise it. Yesterday, I also read about unbound on Pi-Hole, is it useful? Thank you

 

[xiaofan]

Good discussions last time:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...ole-blocking-on-google-cloud-compute.6375286/
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/pi-hole-kit.5825092/
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/free-dns-service.6489242/

 

[TanKianW]

I don't find a local thread discussing on Pi Hole. I learned about Pi Hole from some guys here and on Reddit.

Yesterday, I successfully made one Pi-Hole myself with a cheap Orangepi Zero3 using LAN connection to my router. Effectively blocking ads, tracking, malicious, malware and other suspicious website.

As opposed to RaspberryPi for Pi Hole which most people use it, I attempted to use OrangePi for my project. It's small and effective chip, bought a case and small cooler fan in the case.

Yesterday, tried updating the adlist from various source, firebog, hagezi from GitHub, and added some list which broke my mobile Facebook webpage. I had to troubleshoot and re-add all the list one by one.

Any one has recommendation of good and stable list other than firebog and hagezi?
Also, if anyone with knowledge about Pi-Hole, can share more about how to fully utilise it. Yesterday, I also read about unbound on Pi-Hole, is it useful? Thank you

For fun and testing, I think OrangePi does provide some fun for experimenting. Dun get me wrong, I also love to play around with all kinds of SBC in the past. However, as I tried out more, all the more I went back to RP most of the time. For anything more and in between, OrangePi always lacks the software community and support when compared to the RasPi project, which is the main reason RP is more expensive and popular than the other. OP also seemed to be more niche and gave me more beta sw testing quirks instead of full fledge software suite from RP. Which always lead to more trouble-shooting for slightly out of range software projects. So If there is a choice, for starters, I will advise getting a RP instead of OP for the PiHole experimenting and project. When you easily grow out of it from a single SBC, you can still repurpose your RP for much different applications and RP projects. Run local LLMs, AI video detection, Android, you name it.

Another recommended and easy way to run PiHole is on your NAS or hypervisor (mini-pc) over containers which I guess most who are experimenting will find it really convenient to spin one up or a few more for high availability. Any problem with your test setup, just delete and spin up another, or just revert to a previous snapshot.

Just sharing.​

 

[xiaofan]

I was using Pi-hole last time (initially on the cloud, then as a LxC container under Proxmox PVE on the mini PC), then changed to Adguard Home (LxC container under PVE), now lazy and just use the Adblock-fast from OpenWRT.

Hagezi seems to be the most popular now. Last time it was OISD and I still use OISD myself.

My OpenWRT DNS blocker list configuration:

 

[xiaofan]

My Adguard Home settings when I was using it (until August 2024).

You can choose from many blocklists if you use Adguard Home, and indeed HaGeZi is very popular now.

 

[TanKianW]

I was using Pi-hole last time (initially on the cloud, then as a LxC container under Proxmox PVE on the mini PC), then changed to Adguard Home (LxC container under PVE), now lazy and just use the Adblock-fast from OpenWRT.

Hagezi seems to be the most popular now. Last time it was OISD and I still use OISD myself.

I mainly still use pfblocker-ng on pfsense. Also run a few AdGuard Home/PiHole containers over my TrueNAS Scale or Linux VMs on xcp-ng+XO which serve various different servers on the network.

My RP now mainly use for some ARM software app testing projects, security scanning/pen-test appliance or IIoTs applications. For recreation use, mainly repurposed to flash AOSP for converting monitors to smart tv for the elderly and training for the young. Other SBC other than RP are mainly collecting dust, even some of them build with support for OpenWRT has not seen new kernel updates after a few years.​

 

[xiaofan]

I mainly still use pfblocker-ng on pfsense. Also run a few AdGuard Home/PiHole containers over my TrueNAS Scale or Linux VMs on xcp-ng+XO which serve various different servers on the network.

My RP now mainly use for some ARM software app testing projects, security scanning/pen-test appliance or IIoTs applications. For recreation use, mainly repurposed to flash AOSP for converting monitors to smart tv for the elderly and training for the young. Other SBC other than RP are mainly collecting dust, even some of them build with support for OpenWRT has not seen new kernel updates after a few years.​

Indeed my Orange Pi boards (mostly bought in 2018/2019, mostly running Armbian last time) are all collecting dust. Same for a few Nano Pi boards (except NanoPi R4S which is a free gift I got recently and plan to run Armbian/OpenWRT).

I just got the Raspberry Pi 500 and use it as an Arm Linux machine for my Open Source projects testing, as an upgrade to Raspberry Pi 400. I have two Raspberry Pi 400. I used one of them as a simple NAS running OMV but it has not been powered on for a while. I still use the other Raspberry Pi 400 occassionally (playing with different Linux distros occassionally but mainly running 64 bit Raspberry Pi OS). Then I have two Raspberry Pi 3B+ and two Raspberry Pi 2B boards but they are no longer being used.

I am not into IoT myself so the use cases are limited.

 

[Jurong640]

Good discussions last time:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...ole-blocking-on-google-cloud-compute.6375286/
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/pi-hole-kit.5825092/
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/free-dns-service.6489242/

I was using Pi-hole last time (initially on the cloud, then as a LxC container under Proxmox PVE on the mini PC), then changed to Adguard Home (LxC container under PVE), now lazy and just use the Adblock-fast from OpenWRT.

Hagezi seems to be the most popular now. Last time it was OISD and I still use OISD myself.

My Adguard Home settings when I was using it (until August 2024).

You can choose from many blocklists, and indeed HaGeZi is very popular now.

Thank you xiaofan, care to share the links of the list you are currently using? Like the OISD, youtube ad DNS?

 

[Jurong640]

For fun and testing, I think OrangePi does provide some fun for experimenting. Dun get me wrong, I also love to play around with all kinds of SBC in the past. However, as I tried out more, all the more I went back to RP most of the time. For anything more and in between, OrangePi always lacks the software community and support when compared to the RasPi project, which is the main reason RP is more expensive and popular than the other. OP also seemed to be more niche and gave me more beta sw testing quirks instead of full fledge software suite from RP. Which always lead to more trouble-shooting for slightly out of range software projects. So If there is a choice, for starters, I will advise getting a RP instead of OP for the PiHole experimenting and project. When you easily grow out of it from a single SBC, you can still repurpose your RP for much different applications and RP projects. Run local LLMs, AI video detection, Android, you name it.

Another recommended and easy way to run PiHole is on your NAS or hypervisor (mini-pc) over containers which I guess most who are experimenting will find it really convenient to spin one up or a few more for high availability. Any problem with your test setup, just delete and spin up another, or just revert to a previous snapshot.

Just sharing.​

thank you. So far running the pi-hole on the new Orangepi Zero 3 very stable, no issues now.

Question, I saw people running deep seek and other LLM on these Pi's, may I know what is the use case for this? Using the deepseek website, always get sever busy messages, so using a local one will be much faster?

I'm also interested in running my own android tv box using these pis.

 

[Jurong640]

Probably, need an updated Pihole discussions. Now, I am thinking about how can I route my phone connections to my pi-hole when I am outside.

I am currently, using Ad-guard DNS when I am outside. Read some threads back, is it we need to use wireguard, how do I do that? Anyone got guide? Thank you

 

[TanKianW]

thank you. So far running the pi-hole on the new Orangepi Zero 3 very stable, no issues now.

​

PiHole has been out for quite a while, I do not think it posed much of a problem even to OP for a single-purpose application. But if you want to expand the testing scope for other applications, RP is simply a better choice.
​

Question, I saw people running deep seek and other LLM on these Pi's, may I know what is the use case for this? Using the deepseek website, always get sever busy messages, so using a local one will be much faster?

I think running LLMs on Pi is more suitable on a test setup for learning the ropes with minimum HW requirements. And yes, if you run and host it locally, you will not have to worry if the website is busy. But the generating speed for the different parameters will still be subjected to the power of your current HW, which a SBC simply could not keep up. You can check out the YT videos on Network Chuck, Jeff Geerling and Level1tech on some ways to experiment with local LLMs.

Most importantly, you will not share your data with Deepseek to train their AI, which could pose privacy concerns for enterprise users or academic/enterprise test labs. For the actual use case, I suggest running it on dedicated GPUs (Nvidia ones). You can even host your API of the LLMs for IoT applications, your voice assistant on your shiny smart home, your personal coding and programming assistant, your own "Copilot". More advanced use could even be learning to set boundaries and prompts to train the AI to make it your own. Currently, the easiest way is to host your LLMs on Ollama with OpenWebUI, or even experiment with the different picture generation models with Stable Diffusion.

Currently I run my LLMs locally on the hypervisor (xcp-ng+XO) with Nvidia GPU passthrough:

​

I am currently, using Ad-guard DNS when I am outside. Read some threads back, is it we need to use wireguard, how do I do that? Anyone got guide? Thank you​

If you want to route your traffic back home then probably yes. If not, I dun think you need it. There are many ways of setting up your WG server. You can search around the forum. Whichever best suit your use case. You can either host your WireGuard VPN server over an SBC (RP), NAS OS, VMs or even your router (OpenWRT/pfSense).​

 

[xiaofan]

I think running LLMs on Pi is more suitable on a test setup for learning the ropes with minimum HW requirements. And yes, if you run and host it locally, you will not have to worry if the website is busy. You can check out the videos on Network Chuck, Jeff Geerling and Level1tech on some ways to experiment with local LLMs.

Most importantly, you will not share your data with Deepseek to train their AI, which could pose privacy concerns for enterprise users or academic/enterprise test labs. For the actual use case, I suggest running it on dedicated GPUs (Nvidia ones). You can even host your API of the LLMs for IoT applications, your voice assistant on your shiny smart home, your personal coding and programming assistant, your own "Copilot". More advanced use could even be learning to set boundaries and prompts to train the AI to make it your own. Currently, the easiest way is to host your LLMs on Ollama with OpenWebUI, or even experiment with the different picture generation models with Stable Diffusion.

Currently I run my LLMs locally on the hypervisor (xcp-ng+XO) with Nvidia GPU passthrough:

​

Nice one.

I do not even have a PC with discrete GPU. Not going to try to run LLMs locally myself...

Not into IoT myself and not into AI much either. Just playing a bit with different AI related apps (ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Google Gemini, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, etc) on the mobile phone and laptops. So far it seems to me OpenAI is still the best and then DeepSeek for the simple questions I ask.

BTW, Singtel gives one year free Perplexity Pro subscription now, which has the option to use Open AI's o3-mini and DeepSeek R1 reasoning models.
https://www.singtel.com/personal/my-account/rewards-perplexity
https://www.perplexity.ai/help-cent...are-included-in-a-perplexity-pro-subscription

 

[xiaofan]

Thank you xiaofan, care to share the links of the list you are currently using? Like the OISD, youtube ad DNS?

Just OISD-big. StevenBlack is used as a backup just in case OISD got problem.

I do not think you can block Youtube ads using DNS blocker.

For DNS, I always use 1.1.1.3 (Cloudflare Family DNS) and 9.9.9.9 (Quad9) and DoT (DNS over HTTPS) on my OpenWRT main router. Occassionally I try Cisco OpenDNS FamilyShield and ControlD Family DNS as well. Adguard Public DNS is just too slow.

I do not set up our mobile devices to use this type of filtering DNS when going outside, just use whatever the mobile service provider uses.

1) My OpenWRT adblock-fast service blocker list configuration.

2) My OpenWRT HTTPS DNS Proxy setting

 

[Jurong640]

PiHole has been out for quite a while, I do not think it posed much of a problem even to OP for a single-purpose application. But if you want to expand the testing scope for other applications, RP is simply a better choice.



I think running LLMs on Pi is more suitable on a test setup for learning the ropes with minimum HW requirements. And yes, if you run and host it locally, you will not have to worry if the website is busy. But the generating speed for the different parameters will still be subjected to the power of your current HW, which a SBC simply could not keep up. You can check out the YT videos on Network Chuck, Jeff Geerling and Level1tech on some ways to experiment with local LLMs.

Most importantly, you will not share your data with Deepseek to train their AI, which could pose privacy concerns for enterprise users or academic/enterprise test labs. For the actual use case, I suggest running it on dedicated GPUs (Nvidia ones). You can even host your API of the LLMs for IoT applications, your voice assistant on your shiny smart home, your personal coding and programming assistant, your own "Copilot". More advanced use could even be learning to set boundaries and prompts to train the AI to make it your own. Currently, the easiest way is to host your LLMs on Ollama with OpenWebUI, or even experiment with the different picture generation models with Stable Diffusion.

Currently I run my LLMs locally on the hypervisor (xcp-ng+XO) with Nvidia GPU passthrough:

If you want to route your traffic back home then probably yes. If not, I dun think you need it. There are many ways of setting up your WG server. You can search around the forum. Whichever best suit your use case. You can either host your WireGuard VPN server over an SBC (RP), NAS OS, VMs or even your router (OpenWRT/pfSense).​

cool. there are so many things to learn and customise. I'll go learn more about that in near future, build own IOT applications.

 

[TanKianW]

I'm also interested in running my own android tv box using these pis.

I mainly use a RP not OP for such purposes. YMMV. RP5 also prove to be much faster and smoother experience (comparing with RP4) for smart tv applications.

​

cool. there are so many things to learn and customise. I'll go learn more about that in near future, build own IOT applications.

A RP will surely open up more doors for you.

On the AI video detection front, you can even host your own 3D-print farm (remote) server on a RP with a webcam and touchscreen dashboard control, stream it to an AI server for failure detection. So when print failure, it will auto shut down, saving you a mess or even waste to plastic filaments, when you are not watching.

Or even try out the cheap mini ESP32 boards for IoTs application.

Ok, I will stop here, before it turns into a homelab and SBC project thread. Even for me, so much to learn and experiment! Have fun! ​

 

[xiaofan]

For Android TV box, I do not recommend using a Raspberry Pi or things like that. Xiaomi Mi Box S Gen 2 is cheap and good as it is certified to run apps like Netflix, Singtel Cast and Starhub TV+. It is also able to run other apps if you want to sideload apps.

I have the summary here.
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/android-tv-box-recommendations.6662455/

 

[Jurong640]

Current status of my Pi-Hole using OrangePi Zero 3 after 25-hours. That's a lot of trackers.

 

[Jurong640]

I mainly use a RP not OP for such purposes. YMMV. RP5 also prove to be much faster and smoother experience (comparing with RP4) for smart tv applications.

​

A RP will surely open up more doors for you.

On the AI video detection front, you can even host your own 3D-print farm (remote) server on a RP with a webcam and touchscreen dashboard control, stream it to an AI server for failure detection. So when print failure, it will auto shut down, saving you a mess or even waste to plastic filaments, when you are not watching.

Or even try out the cheap mini ESP32 boards for IoTs application.

Ok, I will stop here, before it turns into a homelab and SBC project thread. Even for me, so much to learn and experiment! Have fun! ​

haha thanks . I also have 2 ESP32 at home and wanted to re-purpose it for something. I was previously using it as Lucky Bitcoin miner (haha)

 

[Jurong640]

Top on my list for top domain is " ota.onecloud.harman.com".
Seems my JBL soundbar have been doing it actively, I've blacklisted this domain. What are they doing?

 

[HiHelloBye]

Top on my list for top domain is " ota.onecloud.harman.com".
Seems my JBL soundbar have been doing it actively, I've blacklisted this domain. What are they doing?

from the domain,

it looks like, Over-The-Air (OTA) update service?