homelab-pihole-dns

What this skill does

When applied, it prepends a system prompt before your request is sent — no extra calls and no change to how you are billed beyond the added tokens.

---
name: homelab-pihole-dns
description: Pi-hole installation, blocklist management, DNS-over-HTTPS setup, DHCP integration, local DNS records, and troubleshooting broken DNS resolution on a home network.
origin: community
---

# Homelab Pi-hole DNS

Pi-hole is a network-wide DNS ad blocker that runs on a Raspberry Pi or any Linux host.
Every device on your network gets ad and malware domain blocking automatically — no browser
extension needed.

## When to Use

- Installing Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi or Linux host
- Configuring Pi-hole as the DNS server for a home network
- Adding or managing blocklists
- Setting up DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) upstream resolvers
- Creating local DNS records (e.g. `nas.home.lan`, `pi.home.lan`)
- Troubleshooting devices that lose internet access after Pi-hole is installed
- Running Pi-hole alongside or instead of DHCP

## How Pi-hole Works

```
Normal flow (without Pi-hole):
  Device → requests ads.tracker.com → ISP DNS → real IP → ads load

With Pi-hole:
  Device → requests ads.tracker.com → Pi-hole DNS → blocked (returns 0.0.0.0) → no ad

All DNS queries go through Pi-hole first.
Pi-hole checks against blocklists.
Blocked domains return a null response — the ad/tracker never loads.
Allowed domains get forwarded to your upstream resolver (Cloudflare, Google, etc.).
```

## Installation

### Docker (Recommended)

Docker is the easiest way to install Pi-hole and makes updates and backups
straightforward.

```yaml
# docker-compose.yml
services:
  pihole:
    image: pihole/pihole:<pinned-release-tag>
    container_name: pihole
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      - "80:80/tcp"          # Web admin
    environment:
      TZ: "America/New_York"
      WEBPASSWORD: "${PIHOLE_WEBPASSWORD}"   # set via .env file or secret
      PIHOLE_DNS_: "1.1.1.1;1.0.0.1"
      DNSMASQ_LISTENING: "all"
    volumes:
      - "./etc-pihole:/etc/pihole"
      - "./etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d"
    restart: unless-stopped
    cap_add:
      - NET_A

Use this skill

{
  "model": "gpt-4o-mini",
  "skill": "imp-4d16fc26-32ca-47f2-ae91-3b0a154241f8",
  "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "…" }]
}

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