Pi-hole is a network wide ad blocker that prevents your computers from seeing ads on web browsers and other programs by diverting their DNS entries into a black hole. This means that when your browser, for example goes to a website that servers an ad from an ad server in the block list, that ad server is not reachable by the web browser and the content is ignored.
Pi-hole v5.0
Pi-hole got its name from the cheap single board computer, the Raspberry Pi, as well as an Internet black hole. Although the name Pi-hole meant it could work on a Raspberry Pi, it can be installed a wide range of equipment, anything that is capable of running Docker.
Pi Hole is much improved from the previous releases using a database instead of text files to manage the white and black lists that allow and block content from the Internet dependent on use case.
Everything is managed through a web interface.
Install Pi-hole
Start by choosing what kind of hardware you wish to run Pi-hole on, if it’s an old PC, perhaps think about installing Linux Mint on it, just go to linuxmint.com download an ISO image and reinstall the computer with Linux Mint.
Or if you want to use a Raspberry Pi, use the Balena Etcher to write Raspbian to a microSD card and insert that into your Raspberry Pi.
Make sure you configure the machine using static IP addressing and make a note of the IP address, as you will need it later.
Once you have logged in, run this command:
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
This initiates the installer, which will install Pi-hole to your machine.
Set up the DNS
The easiest place to set Pi-Hole is by adding it’s IP address as the DNS server in your router so that all the computers use that to look up stuff on the Internet.
The alternative approach is to log into each device on your network and add the DNS entry to them.
Access Pi-hole
Open a web browser on one of your computer and point it at the IP address of your Pi-hole machine and you can log in and control your Pi-hole remotely.
