ASUS USING PI-HOLE

[Neil62]

Those little things rarely fail. I haven't seen a failed one, actually. Your RT-AC86U may fail before the Pi.

Ya correct, not so much the machine, but the SD cards can be found wanting at times....

 

[K-2SO]

but the SD cards can be found wanting at times....

True. The kit I ordered is coming with Samsung Evo+ 32GB. Let's see how far it can go.

 

[Neil62]

True. The kit I ordered is coming with Samsung Evo+ 32GB. Let's see how far it can go.

Nice, I have the same size card, but am using a SanDisk Ultra...

 

[dave14305]

I picked up a Raspberry Pi 4B with 4GB RAM and a 32 GB SD card at a MicroCenter not too far from (but not too close to) where I live. Not sure exactly what I’ll do with it yet, but I’m playing with Pi-Hole. I imagine with some ingenuity a script could be written that would pull the clientlist from the router over SSH and format it in dnsmasq configuration files in /etc/dnsmasq.d. Conditional forwarding is fine for me, but I can see how it falls short with too many devices.

 

[K-2SO]

I picked up a Raspberry Pi 4B with 4GB RAM

This one is the fastest, but runs hot. Reaches 80C quickly and starts to throttle.
Get a cases with heatsinks + fan for the final product. I ordered 3B+ to avoid the fan.

 

[dave14305]

This one is the fastest, but runs hot. Reaches 80C quickly and starts to throttle.
Get a cases with heatsinks + fan for the final product. I ordered 3B+ to avoid the fan.

Mine is hanging at 53c for now. Couldn’t decide which case would be best so I have the cheap official case for now. This case got good cooling reviews in the MagPi magazine, but it’s kinda hard to find.

 

[K-2SO]

This case got good cooling reviews in the MagPi magazine

Many to chose from on Amazon. I have one 4B living in a GeeekPi Acrylic. A bit ugly, but $10.
Drops the temp to ~55C under load. I don't like much the exposed fan, but... can't beat $10 price.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07VH7J9QC/?tag=smallncom-20

 

[Neil62]

I picked up a Raspberry Pi 4B with 4GB RAM and a 32 GB SD card at a MicroCenter not too far from (but not too close to) where I live. Not sure exactly what I’ll do with it yet, but I’m playing with Pi-Hole. I imagine with some ingenuity a script could be written that would pull the clientlist from the router over SSH and format it in dnsmasq configuration files in /etc/dnsmasq.d. Conditional forwarding is fine for me, but I can see how it falls short with too many devices.

If anyone has a script that can do as you suggest that would great if they are willing to share it

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

[K-2SO]

@dave14305 @ColinTaylor
Is there a way to delay calling the second available DNS with 1 second?

Pi-hole and Google DNS as an example case below:
The Pi is running Unbound as resolver, no forwarding. It needs some time to do non-cached queries. With Pi-hole IP in DHCP and Google IP in WAN some queries go through Google. It never happens with Dnsmasq or Unbound as forwarder to Google because Google replies very fast in 10-12ms. Unbound may need >300ms for some queries as per logs.

 

[dave14305]

Is there a way to delay calling the second available DNS with 1 second?

That’s up to the DHCP client to determine. The router is out of the picture when a different DNS server is given via DHCP. Usually Windows will timeout after 2 seconds, I think.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@K-2SO As Dave said it's up to the client. For example: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2834226/net-dns-dns-client-resolution-timeouts

 

[K-2SO]

Yeah... Windows does exactly what I need, but some other clients time-out faster. I was hoping you guys know some tricks to hold this process on the DHCP side. Let me see how it is going to work after Unbound builds some cache. I would like to keep the fail-safe configuration.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Yeah... Windows does exactly what I need, but some other clients time-out faster. I was hoping you guys know some tricks to hold this process on the DHCP side. Let me see how it is going to work after Unbound builds some cache. I would like to keep the fail-safe configuration.

Just speculating, but I can image some OS's like Android or Linux configuring their DNS queries for parallel operation (rather than fail-over). Like dnsmasq's strict-order and all-servers options which can be used to favour the fastest responding server.

 

[K-2SO]

Just speculating,

I would say this is exactly the case just looking at Pi-hole logs. Queries from Android and iOS pop in the same time from device IP and router IP. Same time I mean same second, >20 queries at times.

 

[K-2SO]

Argh... I see it now. Android sends some queries to Google as hard coded DNS. iOS goes in order, but much faster than Windows. I haven’t checked the exact timing info, but this is what happens in the logs. Hmm... may have to switch to plan B with Merlin.

 

[K-2SO]

Sorry to bother you again @dave14305 and @ColinTaylor , but before I re-flash the router:
Any way to stop router's IP advertising in Asus stock firmware? Thank you!

 

[dave14305]

Sorry to bother you again @dave14305 and @ColinTaylor , but before I re-flash the router:
Any way to stop router's IP advertising in Asus stock firmware? Thank you!

Don’t think so. There’s a reason we haven’t run stock firmware in years!

 

[K-2SO]

Don’t think so. There’s a reason we haven’t run stock firmware in years!

I know. Just testing latest Asus 81858 on this router.
The other router, on Merlin, I'm not allowed to touch.

 

[K-2SO]

After a lot of playing with Unbound settings I figured out Google always wins with the enormous cache they have and local servers. Pi in DHCP as forwarder to Google and slower in my area Cleanbrowsing in WAN solved the problem. Google replies in 10-12ms, Cleanbrowsing in 50-70ms. As a result no client uses Cleanbrowsing. Only the router itself and clients when the Pi is down. Not the solution I was after but it works and the web pages load instantly.

 

[K-2SO]

So how should the router be set up then so the pihole uses/obtains client names and not host names?

Pi-hole v5.0 is available now - https://pi-hole.net/2020/05/10/pi-hole-v5-0-is-here/
You can use the new Local DNS Records item in GUI and set user-friendly names. No more IPs in Dashboard and Query Log.