pihole

name	pihole
description	Install and manage Pi-hole — the original network-wide ad blocker with a web dashboard.

Pi-hole

Install and manage Pi-hole — the original network-wide ad blocker with a web dashboard.

Category: home, security API Key Required: No

What It Does

Pi-hole is a DNS sinkhole that blocks ads and trackers for every device on your network. Unlike our lightweight AdBlock DNS skill, Pi-hole comes with a full web admin dashboard showing real-time stats, query logs, per-client breakdowns, and a visual interface for managing blocklists and whitelists.

Best for: users who want a visual dashboard and granular control over their DNS filtering.

Setup

One-line install

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

This runs an interactive installer. For automated/unattended install:

# Set preferences first
sudo mkdir -p /etc/pihole
sudo tee /etc/pihole/setupVars.conf << 'EOF'
PIHOLE_INTERFACE=eth0
PIHOLE_DNS_1=1.1.1.1
PIHOLE_DNS_2=8.8.8.8
QUERY_LOGGING=true
INSTALL_WEB_SERVER=true
INSTALL_WEB_INTERFACE=true
LIGHTTPD_ENABLED=true
BLOCKING_ENABLED=true
WEBPASSWORD=
EOF

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash /dev/stdin --unattended

Set admin password

pihole -a -p YOUR_PASSWORD

Access the dashboard

Open http://YOUR_IP/admin in a browser.

Point devices to Pi-hole

Set your router's DNS to this machine's IP, or configure individual devices. Same process as any DNS server — see device DNS settings.

Agent Commands

Check Pi-hole status

pihole status

View stats

# Summary
pihole -c -e

# Detailed via API
curl -s "http://localhost/admin/api.php?summary" | python3 -m json.tool

Query log (recent)

pihole -t | head -30

Top blocked domains

curl -s "http://localhost/admin/api.php?topItems=15&auth=API_TOKEN" | python3 -c "
import json,sys
d = json.load(sys.stdin)
print('Top blocked:')
for domain, count in d.get('top_ads',{}).items():
    print(f'  {count:>6}  {domain}')
"

Top clients

curl -s "http://localhost/admin/api.php?topClients=10&auth=API_TOKEN" | python3 -m json.tool

Whitelist a domain

pihole -w example.com

Blacklist a domain

pihole -b annoying-domain.com

Remove from whitelist

pihole -w -d example.com

Disable Pi-hole temporarily

# Disable for 5 minutes
pihole disable 5m

# Disable indefinitely
pihole disable

# Re-enable
pihole enable

Update Pi-hole

pihole -up

Update blocklists

pihole -g

Check what's blocked/allowed

pihole -q example.com

Restart DNS

pihole restartdns

Tail the log

pihole -t

Get API token

cat /etc/pihole/setupVars.conf | grep WEBPASSWORD
# Or set a new one: pihole -a -p newpassword

Dashboard Features

The web UI at http://YOUR_IP/admin shows:

• Total queries, blocked queries, block percentage
• Queries over time (graph)
• Top permitted/blocked domains
• Top clients
• Query log with search
• Group management (block different things for different devices)
• Adlist management
• Long-term statistics

Adding More Blocklists

# Via web UI: Group Management > Adlists > Add URL
# Via CLI:
sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "INSERT INTO adlist (address, enabled) VALUES ('https://example.com/blocklist.txt', 1);"
pihole -g  # Update gravity

Popular extra lists:

• https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Easylist.txt
• https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Easyprivacy.txt
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/master/Alternate%20versions%20Anti-Malware%20List/AntiMalwareHosts.txt

Constraints

• Uses port 80 (web UI) and 53 (DNS) — conflicts with other web servers or DNS servers on the same machine
• Raspberry Pi recommended but works on any Linux machine
• Same DNS limitation as all DNS blockers: can't block YouTube/Twitch ads (served from same domain as content)
• Requires sudo for most operations
• Uses ~50MB RAM on idle