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> What's more likely though is that you just point your router's DNS setting to Pi-hole, and in that case there is only one client on the Pi-hole dashboard - yo

> What's more likely though is that you just point your router's DNS setting to Pi-hole, and in that case there is only one client on the Pi-hole dashboard - your router. That depends entirely on what capabilities your router has. Many routers have a setting for the DNS info they give to clients via DHCP, which would mean every client is indeed using PiHole directly for DNS resolution. Other less capable routers, only have a setting for which upstream DNS server(s) the router should use, which of course isn't going to allow you to do anything with PiHole's group stuff. But an easy solution is simply to disable the DHCP server on the router, and simply use what is built-in to PiHole. It uses dnsmasq behind the scenes, and as DHCP servers go, it's pretty capable and configurable. This is how I use PiHole on my own network, and have done for years now (with some customised dnsmasq config, because I have strong preferences about my network setup and services). Most routers do nothing particularly special regarding DHCP anyhow, so no big deal to just turn it off, and use PiHole's stuff. FWIW, and tangent to these specific points, my upgrade to the new PiHole 6 earlier today was pretty smooth — with the exception of it defaulting to having its dashboard on port 8080 instead of my previous 80. Plus I had to tweak a couple of settings to ensure it loads my custom dnsmasq config. But no deal breakers at all.

master_crab 2y ago
And if your gateway device is configurable enough you can ban or redirect port 53 requests (DNS) to whatever machine you would like to use to serve up resolution.
- zaudo 2y ago
  This is exactly what I do with my Unifi router, but still all I see in Pi-hole is the router making the DNS requests.
  - InvertedRhodium 2y ago
    Are you NATing the redirection to the pi hole server? If so, disabling it should let pihole see unique clients.
  - bdavbdav 2y ago
    I think you’ve set the WAN dns to the PiHole. You need to set the DNS in networks.
- jimsmart 2y ago
  That's kinda janky really. DNS doesn't have redirection like HTTP has, so what you describe can only be implemented using port forwarding (or SSH tunnelling, but I've never seen a router with the ability to tunnel DNS in this fashion?). Port forwarding used like this, won't enable one to use the 'groups' functionality on PiHole — which was the (g)parent thread here — because all requests arriving at the PiHole will come from the same client, i.e. the router. Because port forwarding is more like a proxy than a redirect (to use HTTP terms). The correct solution here if one wishes to use PiHole's groups — and not have a janky network configuration like you describe here (an extra unnecessary hop for local DNS) — is to either (a) use the router's DHCP settings to tell the clients to use the PiHole IP for their DNS, or (b) disable the router's DHCP and simply use the DHCP that PiHole provides, which is at least as good as what most routers provide (and more configurable than most routers also, should one need to)
  - master_crab 2y ago
    That doesn’t correct the situation in which the device is ignoring DHCP DNS requests.
    - jimsmart 2y ago
      > That doesn’t correct the situation in which the device is ignoring DHCP DNS requests. That's the first time such a thing has been mentioned in this thread. But I now get what you're trying to say in your comment above. Sure, one can use e.g. iptables, to forward all outbound traffic on some port to some local IP. If your router has such capabilities. But your rules won't be as simple as forward all port 53 traffic: you'll need to ensure that you exclude the PiHole from any rules like that (otherwise it would create an infinite loop) - or ensure the rule is specific for the device(s) in question. And of course it wouldn't work if the device is using DoH. But the issue you've introduced here, a device with hard-coded DNS, isn't really what this thread is about — the topic here was ~about wanting to group clients in PiHole, and different ways to configure the router to achieve this, without only seeing a single requesting client IP at the PiHole.
      - 2y ago

master_crab 2y ago

And if your gateway device is configurable enough you can ban or redirect port 53 requests (DNS) to whatever machine you would like to use to serve up resolution.

zaudo 2y ago
This is exactly what I do with my Unifi router, but still all I see in Pi-hole is the router making the DNS requests.
- InvertedRhodium 2y ago
  Are you NATing the redirection to the pi hole server? If so, disabling it should let pihole see unique clients.
- bdavbdav 2y ago
  I think you’ve set the WAN dns to the PiHole. You need to set the DNS in networks.
jimsmart 2y ago
That's kinda janky really. DNS doesn't have redirection like HTTP has, so what you describe can only be implemented using port forwarding (or SSH tunnelling, but I've never seen a router with the ability to tunnel DNS in this fashion?). Port forwarding used like this, won't enable one to use the 'groups' functionality on PiHole — which was the (g)parent thread here — because all requests arriving at the PiHole will come from the same client, i.e. the router. Because port forwarding is more like a proxy than a redirect (to use HTTP terms). The correct solution here if one wishes to use PiHole's groups — and not have a janky network configuration like you describe here (an extra unnecessary hop for local DNS) — is to either (a) use the router's DHCP settings to tell the clients to use the PiHole IP for their DNS, or (b) disable the router's DHCP and simply use the DHCP that PiHole provides, which is at least as good as what most routers provide (and more configurable than most routers also, should one need to)
- master_crab 2y ago
  That doesn’t correct the situation in which the device is ignoring DHCP DNS requests.
  - jimsmart 2y ago
    > That doesn’t correct the situation in which the device is ignoring DHCP DNS requests. That's the first time such a thing has been mentioned in this thread. But I now get what you're trying to say in your comment above. Sure, one can use e.g. iptables, to forward all outbound traffic on some port to some local IP. If your router has such capabilities. But your rules won't be as simple as forward all port 53 traffic: you'll need to ensure that you exclude the PiHole from any rules like that (otherwise it would create an infinite loop) - or ensure the rule is specific for the device(s) in question. And of course it wouldn't work if the device is using DoH. But the issue you've introduced here, a device with hard-coded DNS, isn't really what this thread is about — the topic here was ~about wanting to group clients in PiHole, and different ways to configure the router to achieve this, without only seeing a single requesting client IP at the PiHole.
    - 2y ago