I don’t have enough knowledge about this when writing the documenation for setting up the pi-hole. I’m running this on a container in Raspberry Pi 5 8GB device (I know it’s an overkill but it’s for learning).

Let’s use docker compose to run the pi-hole container

  • Create directory for storing pi-hole configurations
mkdir pihole-config
cd pihole-config
  • Create a file named docker-compose.yml
touch docker-compose.yml
  • Copy & paste this YAML configuration into docker-compose.yml
services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp" # DNS Ports
      - "53:53/udp" # DNS Ports
      - "80:80/tcp" # Default HTTP Port
      - "443:443/tcp" # Default HTTPs Port
      - "67:67/udp" # using Pi-hole as your DHCP server
    environment:
      TZ: 'Asia/Kolkata'
      # Not setting one will result in a random password being assigned
      FTLCONF_webserver_api_password: 'pass'
      # If using Docker's default `bridge` network setting the dns listening mode should be set to 'all'
      FTLCONF_dns_listeningMode: 'all'
    volumes:
      # Pi-hole's databases and common configuration file
      - './etc-pihole:/etc/pihole'
      # Uncomment the below if you have custom dnsmasq config files that you want to persist. Not needed for most starting fresh with Pi-hole v6. If you're upgrading from v5 you and have used this directory before, you should keep it enabled for the first v6 container start to allow for a complete migration. It can be removed afterwards. Needs environment variable FTLCONF_misc_etc_dnsmasq_d: 'true'
      #- './etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d'
    cap_add:
      # See https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole#note-on-capabilities
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your DHCP server, else not needed
      - NET_ADMIN
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your NTP client to be able to set the host's system time
      - SYS_TIME
      # Optional, if Pi-hole should get some more processing time
      - SYS_NICE
    restart: unless-stopped
  • Run the docker compose
docker compose up -d
  • Head inside the weblogin. i.e, http://localhost:80/admin (Note: Make sure the URL ends with /admin)

Let’s setup the DNS address and connect other devices to use pi-hole

  • Login into the pi-hole web login
  • Goto Settings » DNS > Click the DNS of your liking in IPV4(I chose Open DNS)

Let’s Connect from a Device

  1. pi-hole installed in 192.168.31.102, so make sure to point the devices to this IP address.
  2. Change the DNS manually on a specific connection.
sudo nmcli connection modify device-name ipv4.dns "192.168.31.102"
sudo nmcli connection reload
sudo nmcli connection up device-name

Check whether it’s actually allocated to the device

sudo nmcli connection show device-name | grep DNS
  • When the specified DNS is allocated, let’s check the resolv.conf as well
cat /etc/resolv.conf
  • Manually change the configuration, when the specified DNS address is not reflected here
nameserver 192.168.31.102

One-Step Installation (with docker installed in linux)

mkdir pihole-config
cd pihole-config
touch docker-compose.yml
echo "services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp" # DNS Ports
      - "53:53/udp" # DNS Ports
      - "80:80/tcp" # Default HTTP Port
      - "443:443/tcp" # Default HTTPs Port
      - "67:67/udp" # using Pi-hole as your DHCP server
    environment:
      TZ: 'Asia/Kolkata'
      # Not setting one will result in a random password being assigned
      FTLCONF_webserver_api_password: 'pass'
      # If using Docker's default `bridge` network setting the dns listening mode should be set to 'all'
      FTLCONF_dns_listeningMode: 'all'
    volumes:
      # Pi-hole's databases and common configuration file
      - './etc-pihole:/etc/pihole'
      # Uncomment the below if you have custom dnsmasq config files that you want to persist. Not needed for most starting fresh with Pi-hole v6. If you're upgrading from v5 you and have used this directory before, you should keep it enabled for the first v6 container start to allow for a complete migration. It can be removed afterwards. Needs environment variable FTLCONF_misc_etc_dnsmasq_d: 'true'
      #- './etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d'
    cap_add:
      # See https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole#note-on-capabilities
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your DHCP server, else not needed
      - NET_ADMIN
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your NTP client to be able to set the host's system time
      - SYS_TIME
      # Optional, if Pi-hole should get some more processing time
      - SYS_NICE
    restart: unless-stopped" >> docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d