Pi-hole is a Linux network-level

advertisement Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

and Internet tracker blocking application which acts as a

DNS sinkhole A DNS sinkhole, also known as a sinkhole server, Internet sinkhole, or Blackhole DNS is a DNS server that has been configured to hand out non-routable addresses for a certain set of domain names. Computers that use the sinkhole fail to access the r ...

and optionally a

DHCP server The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the network using a cli ...

, intended for use on a

private network In Internet networking, a private network is a computer network that uses a private address space of IP addresses. These addresses are commonly used for local area networks (LANs) in residential, office, and enterprise environments. Both the IPv4 ...

. It is designed for low-power embedded devices with network capability, such as the

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

, but can be installed on almost any

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

machine. Pi-hole has the ability to block traditional website advertisements as well as advertisements in unconventional places, such as smart TVs and mobile operating system advertisements.

History

The Pi-hole project was created by Jacob Salmela as an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

alternative to AdTrap in 2014 and was hosted on GitHub. Since then, several contributors have joined the project.

Features

Pi-hole makes use of a modified

dnsmasq dnsmasq is free software providing Domain Name System (DNS) caching, a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, router advertisement and network boot features, intended for small computer networks. dnsmasq has low requirements for ...

called FTLDNS,

cURL cURL (pronounced like "curl", UK: , US: ) is a computer software project providing a library (libcurl) and command-line tool (curl) for transferring data using various network protocols. The name stands for "Client URL". History cURL was fi ...

lighttpd lighttpd (pronounced "lighty") is an open-source web server optimized for speed-critical environments while remaining standards-compliant, secure and flexible. It was originally written by Jan Kneschke as a proof-of-concept of the c10k problem � ...

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

and the AdminLTE Dashboard to block DNS requests for known tracking and advertising domains. The application acts as a

DNS server A name server refers to the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal namespaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names (example. ...

for a private network (replacing any pre-existing DNS server provided by another device or the

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

), with the ability to block advertisements and tracking domains for users' devices. It obtains lists of advertisement and tracking domains from a configurable list of predefined sources, and compares DNS queries against them. If a match is found within any of the lists, or a locally-configured blacklist, Pi-hole will refuse to resolve the requested domain and respond to the requesting device with a dummy address. Because Pi-hole blocks domains at the network level, it is able to block advertisements, such as

banner advertisements A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking ...

on a webpage, but it can also block advertisements in unconventional locations, such as on Android,

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and

smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features, which allows users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart TVs are a techno ...

s. Using

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

services, Pi-Hole can block domains without using a DNS filter setup in a router. Any device that supports VPN can use Pi-Hole on a cellular network or a home network without having a DNS server configured. The nature of Pi-hole allows it to also block website domains in general by manually adding the domain name to a blacklist. Likewise, domains can be manually added to a whitelist should a website's function be impaired by domains being blocked. Pi-hole can also function as a network monitoring tool, which can aid in

troubleshooting Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product or process ope ...

DNS requests and network faults. Pi-hole can also be used to encourage the use of

DNS over HTTPS DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a protocol for performing remote Domain Name System (DNS) resolution via the HTTPS protocol. A goal of the method is to increase user privacy and security by preventing eavesdropping and manipulation of DNS data by man-i ...

for devices using it as a DNS server with the cloudflared binary provided by

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in San ...

Difference from traditional advertisement blockers

Pi-hole functions similarly to a

network firewall In computing, a firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted ne ...

, meaning that advertisements and tracking domains are blocked for all devices behind it, whereas traditional advertisement blockers only run in a user's browser, and remove advertisements only on the same machine.

References

External links

* {{Official website Ad blocking software DNS server software for Linux Software using the European Union Public Licence Raspberry Pi

History

Features

Difference from traditional advertisement blockers

See also

References

External links