Post-Install

Making your network take advantage of Pi-hole

Once the installer has been run, you will need to configure your router to have DHCP clients use Pi-hole as their DNS server which ensures all devices connected to your network will have content blocked without any further intervention.

If your router does not support setting the DNS server, you can use Pi-hole's built-in DHCP server; just be sure to disable DHCP on your router first (if it has that feature available).

As a last resort, you can manually set each device to use Pi-hole as its DNS server.

Making your Pi-hole host use Pi-hole

Pi-hole will not be used by the host automatically after installation. To have the host resolve through Pi-hole and your configured blocking lists, you can make the host use Pi-hole as upstream DNS server:

Warning

If your Pi-hole host is using Pi-hole as upstream DNS server and Pi-hole fails, your host loses DNS resolution. This can prevent successful repair attempts, e.g. by pihole -r as it needs a working internet connection.

If your OS uses dhcpcd for network configuration, you can add to your /etc/dhcpcd.conf

static domain_name_servers=127.0.0.1