this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024

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When Pi-hole is down? (self.selfhosted)

submitted 9 months ago by machinin to c/selfhosted

84 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have an asus router with a pi-hole on the network.

I was doing some work on my server and noticed that when pi-hole was down, I couldn't access the internet. I was looking for some ideas online how to deal with this, but they said to have a second pihole on the network in case one is offline. Is that the only way to do it? Is there any way to have the network go back to normal if the pihole is offline?

(page 2) 36 comments

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Does it work if you change your DNS server by editing /etc/resolv.conf and having it show exactly one name server like

nameserver 9.9.9.9

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
AP	WiFi Access Point
DNS	Domain Name Service/System
HA	Home Assistant automation software
~	High Availability
IP	Internet Protocol
LXC	Linux Containers
PiHole	Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)

6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 3 acronyms.

[Thread #481 for this sub, first seen 4th Feb 2024, 14:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] HybridSarcasm 0 points 9 months ago (14 children)

Add another DNS server (1.1.1.1, for instance) to your DHCP options. Your DHCP clients will use 1.1.1.1 when the pi-hole isn’t responsive.

[–] Rooki 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Does it really do that? I thought if pi-hole blocks it, it just says nothing here, normally a pc then looks up your secondary dns and then ads are back at it.

This was my experience when i did that.

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[–] AtariDump 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

When it comes to a “secondary”DNS... there is nothing like a primary and secondary DNS server. These indications are quite misleading but many systems adopted it this way. Pihole only list the DNS servers as primary and secondary, because this is what the providers write on their pages. The bad phrasing is supported especially by how Windows handles it.

Most operating systems implement DNS servers as alternatives, not as fallbacks, i.e. they will query any of both servers from time to time, so it is quite likely that you will loose your Pi-hole filtering capabilities (at least partially) [if you specify a secondary DNS server on your network].

The ONLY DNS server you should have set on your network is a/the PiHole(s).

[–] HybridSarcasm -1 points 9 months ago

Except when the ONLY pi-hole is down, which was the original OP’s whole question.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (11 children)

If you're router has a failover DNS option, usually listed as DNS 2, I would set something like quad 9 as your backup DNS. Address is 9.9.9.9.

If you don't want to do that, then having a second instance of pihole running as the secondary DNS is pretty much your only good option

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Umm, yea, if your DNS server is offline, how do your machines know how to resolve DNS names to IP addresses?

Which is why IP config has the capability for multiple DNS servers.

If this is surprising, you may wanna read up on your networking.

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

What are you asking? It sounds like you need some sort of HA (high availability)

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