What is PiHole?

Snip from WikiPedia:  “Pi-hole is a Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application which acts as a DNS sinkhole (and optionally a DHCP server), intended for use on a private network. It is designed for use on embedded devices with network capability, such as the Raspberry Pi, but it can be used on other machines running Linux and cloud implementations. 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.”

What is a Raspberry PI?

A Raspberry PI is an inexpensive (5V Volt, 2 Amp) ARM based computer that can run off the power from a USB cable.

Here is a photo of my Raspberry Pi 3B+  with an Adafruit LCD Screen

My Raspberry Pi has the following specifications 

• 4 x 1.4GHz 64-bit (quad-core processor)
• 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM
• Dual-band wireless LAN
• Bluetooth 4.2/BLE,
• Faster Ethernet
• Extended 40-pin GPIO header
• Full-size HDMI 4 USB 2.0 ports
• 5V/2.5A DC power input

My screen has the following specifications (purchased from Pakronics)

• 3.5″ display with 480×320 16-bit colour pixels
• Resistive touch overlay

I plugged in a full sized USB Keyboard, Mouse and HDMI cable.

SD Card Choice

Read my guide to download and write an Raspberry Pi Operating System to an SD card.

I would not put a cheap/slow MicroSD card in the Raspberry PI, aim for at least a UHS (1) or UHS (3) speed SD card for the best bang for buck.

fyi: I bought a new 32GB Samsung UHS 1 Ultra Micro SD card and it died after 12 hours of use. I replaced it with another 32GB No name brand CLASS 10 SD Card I had laying around.

Raspberry Setup

I download and saved the Raspian (Full) Operating System to a SD Card and inserted it into my Raspberry PI 3B+ (view the guide here on preparing an Operating System on a SD card).

I used the American 110-240V AC to 5.25V  2500ma DC power supply (with a US to AUS adaptor) that came with the Adafruit Screen.  It had a Micro USB connection on one end.

It did not work though (I just had a flashing red light on the Raspberry Pi).

I had an Australian 240V AC to 5V 2500ma DC power supply to Micro USB.  from a previous project and it worked (the Raspberry Pi Started up).

I also have a number of Moki brand 240V to USB (1A and 2.4A) adapters. 

I will use the 2.4mA  plug. I know my Adafruit screen uses 100mA so this will do.

I plugged the HDMI cable into my Monitor and set up the HDMI as a Picture in Picture output so I can see my Main 4K screen (Display Port) and the Raspberry Pi HDMI input at the same time.

Frst Raspberry Pi Boot

Mmmm my 4K screen with a 1080P HDMI picture in picture image (from the Raspberry Pi).

The Raspberry Pi  booted fast and a welcome screen appeared

Apologies in advance, photos below are bad (I don’t have a HDMI capture card).

I clicked Next to setup the Raspberry PI

I set my timezone and language

I set a password

I skipped connecting to WiFi (I want pure Ethernet)

I was prompted to update the software

Setup is complete

I rebooted the Raspberry Pi

Second Boot

I changed further configuration by clicking the Raspberry Pi start button then Preferences then Raspberry PI Configuration

I changed the hostname to “raspberrypihole”, set Boot to CLI , Login as “pi“, and set Wait for network.

Update: After my Samsung SD card died I re setup my PI with a no name brand SD card and entered the name “raspberrypihole“

Under display I reviewed the display options

I enabled SSH, SPI and I2C.

I increased the GPU memory to 132GB

Time for a Reboot

SSH Access

I do not want to leave a keyboard, mouse and screen connected once I finish setting it up so I setup a SSH connection to the Raspberry Pi.

TIP: Putty is a free program for SSH connections.

I SSH’ed (more information on SSH below) to the Raspberry Pi and ran these commands to update it’s software and firmware.

sudo apt-get update  && sudo apt-get upgrade

Output

[email protected]:~ $ sudo apt-get update  && sudo apt-get upgrade
Hit:1 http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian buster InRelease
Hit:2 http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian buster InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

The program “htop” is good for viewing system resources.

Now it’s time to look at the Adafruit screen and case.

I put the Raspberry PI in the Adafruit Case

I purchased this kit for the Raspberry Pi, the LCD screen just connects to the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins.  It has a Adafruit LCD screen and a case for my Raspberry Pi 3B+

The screen just connects onto the GPIO pins

The LCD screen allows you to use pins below the screen.

GPIO pins documentation from https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/gpio/

A nice stack 🙂

The case clips are hard to clip over the Raspberry Pi (Don’t force it or you might break for Pi)

The case clip near the GPIO pins is on

The clip near the power plug was off because the Raspberry Pi was not positioned correctly

After 30 minutes I carefully put the Raspberry Pi and LCD screen into the Case.

Side of the case with USB and Ethernet and USB porws exposed.

HDMI, Power and Audio plugs are visible and lined up 🙂

The screen is visible through the case

The screen dips down on one side, I might have to prop it up (hot glue gun) a bit inside later

SSH Connections to the Raspberry PI

I created a SSH connection to my Raspberry PI with Putty

I created a SSH connection to the Raspberry Pi and connected to it.

I ran the “ifconfig” command to get a list of all network interfaces.

I ran “ifconfig” to list all network interfaces.

I ran these commands to update my Raspberry PI Software

• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get upgrade
• sudo apt full-upgrade
• sudo apt -y dist-upgrade

I updated the Pi Firmware too  (this is dangerous, only update if you have issues).

• sudo rpi-update

I rebooted and connected to the Raspberry Pi and ran this command to get the Ethernet and wireless mac address.

The first interface is my Ethernet adopter the second if the WiFi adaptor.

ifconfig |grep ether
ether b8:27:eb:d9:00:86 txqueuelen 1000
ether b8:27:eb:8c:55:d3 txqueuelen 1000

The first Mac address is my Ethernet address on The Raspberry PI and the second is WiFi.

I logged into my router (Telstra DJA0230) and clicked Advanced then Local Network.  I could see my DHCP range was from 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.254, I shortened this to 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.200 (so I can set a static IP Address for the Raspberry PI) then I set a Static IP address for the Raspberry pi to 192.168.0.201.

I rebooted the Raspberry PI and checked the IP address 

I logged into my Router (at https://192.168.0.1)

When my Samsung SD card died I had to re-setup a new SD card but the IP address came across as the mac address stayed the same (as it was the same hardware), I did however change the name of the Static IP hostname in my home router to match the new name “raspberrypihole” (not “pihole”)

I set a static IP for this Ethernet address and defined 192.168.0.201 as the IP address.

Setting Up PiHole on the RaspBerry PI

I SSH’ed to my Raspberry Pi (with the new IP address) and ran this command

Now its time to install Pi Hole onto My Raspberry Pi

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

I received a Root user error

I read this guide on temporarily allowing root logins then rebooted my Pi and connected again as root. Running as root is not a good idea long term buy it works and my location is secure.

I logged in as root and checked my username

# whoami
root

I re-ran this command to restart the PiHole Setup

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

Root user is found

Available packages are downloaded

Confirmation warning.

PiHole is free, consider donating.

I donated. Thanks

This will pay for itself in no time.

Static IP address is required.

I chose to just have PiHole work on Ethernet (and not Wifi)

I was prompted to set my upstream DNS provider.

I selected all default blacklist lists.

I allowed PiHole to use IPv4 and IPv6.

My IP and Gateway was displayed on the screen.

Final warning about setting a static IP address.

The PiHole IPv6 address is show

Install a web server (Yes)

I chose to log all DNS queries.

I oped to allow the viewing of all logged data. This is less secure but I can reduce this later.

The PiHole setup resumed and PiHole was downloaded from GitHub.

A progress bar displayed the install status.

A PiHole admin URL and Password was displayed (write this down)

I loaded the PiHole initial admin screen (http://192.168.0.201/admin/) and it was a bit empty.

I login and logged in.

I had better uninstall the nextdns.io (my blog post about NextDNS.io here) as the Pi will now be the main DNS blocking Sinkhole in our house.

The Raspberry Pi Pi Hole service was up and waiting for connections

On my Windows 10 PC I added the DNS server for the PiHole in IPV4 and IPV6.

I obtained the PiHole IPV4 and IPV6 addresses (1) PiHole Admin, 2) Pi Hole Settings Page, 3) IP Address)

I added the Pi Holes IPV4 IP address to my Windows 10 IP Settings.

I added the Pi Holes IPV6 IP address to my Windows 10 IP Settings.

After 18 hours the Pi Hole Admin interface (at http://192.168.0.201/admin/index.php) was reporting stats.

I can view stats for Protocol and answered queries

I can also see stats for permitted and blocked domains

Default Block Lists

I can also see the source blocked domains

Add 3rd party block lists

I added these block lists to my PiHole list of sites to block (Thanks Jol)

https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Easyprivacy.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Prigent-Ads.txt
https://gitlab.com/quidsup/notrack-blocklists/raw/master/notrack-blocklist.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FadeMind/hosts.extras/master/add.2o7Net/hosts
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker/master/data/hosts/spy.txt
https://www.github.developerdan.com/hosts/lists/ads-and-tracking-extended.txt
https://hostfiles.frogeye.fr/firstparty-trackers-hosts.txt
https://hostfiles.frogeye.fr/multiparty-trackers-hosts.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/android-tracking.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/SmartTV.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/master/AmazonFireTV.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Airelle-trc.txt
https://bitbucket.org/ethanr/dns-blacklists/raw/8575c9f96e5b4a1308f2f12394abd86d0927a4a0/bad_lists/Mandiant_APT1_Report_Appendix_D.txt
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/anudeepND/adac7982307fec6ee23605e281a57f1a/raw/5b8582b906a9497624c3f3187a49ebc23a9cf2fb/Test.txt
https://gitlab.com/quidsup/notrack-blocklists/raw/master/notrack-blocklist.txt
https://gitlab.com/quidsup/notrack-blocklists/raw/master/notrack-malware.txt
https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt
https://hosts-file.net/emd.txt
https://hosts-file.net/exp.txt
https://hosts-file.net/grm.txt
https://hosts-file.net/psh.txt
https://isc.sans.edu/feeds/suspiciousdomains_Medium.txt
https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/justdomains
https://mirror.cedia.org.ec/malwaredomains/immortal_domains.txt
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts
https://phishing.army/download/phishing_army_blocklist_extended.txt
https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/CW_C2_DOMBL.txt
https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/LY_C2_DOMBL.txt
https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_DOMBL.txt
https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/TC_C2_DOMBL.txt
https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/TL_C2_DOMBL.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker/master/data/hosts/spy.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker/master/data/hosts/win10/spy.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/data/add.2o7Net/hosts
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/data/add.Risk/hosts
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/data/add.Spam/hosts
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/data/KADhosts/hosts
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ZeroDot1/CoinBlockerLists/master/hosts
https://reddestdream.github.io/Projects/MinimalHosts/etc/MinimalHostsBlocker/minimalhosts
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_malvertising.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/AdguardDNS.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Airelle-hrsk.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Easylist.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Easyprivacy.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Prigent-Ads.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Prigent-Malware.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Prigent-Phishing.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Shalla-mal.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/static/SamsungSmart.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/static/w3kbl.txt
https://www.malwaredomainlist.com/hostslist/hosts.txt
https://www.squidblacklist.org/downloads/dg-malicious.acl
http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts
https://zerodot1.gitlab.io/CoinBlockerLists/hosts
https://zeustracker.abuse.ch/blocklist.php?download=domainblocklist
http://www.joewein.net/dl/bl/dom-bl.txt
http://www.networksec.org/grabbho/block.txt

I updated all block lists

954,481 domains on my block list 🙂

I now have the PiHole blocking 945,481 domains

LCD Screen Setup

I followed thin guide to setup the screen.

I can this code from the pi (logged in as root)

cd ~
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Raspberry-Pi-Installer-Scripts/master/adafruit-pitft.sh
chmod +x adafruit-pitft.sh
sudo ./adafruit-pitft.sh

I edited /boot/config.txt and changed these values

framebuffer_width=320
framebuffer_height=240

I was prompted to choose a screen

Select configuration:
1. PiTFT 2.4", 2.8" or 3.2" resistive (240x320)
2. PiTFT 2.2" no touch (240x320)
3. PiTFT 2.8" capacitive touch (240x320)
4. PiTFT 3.5" resistive touch (320x480)
5. PiTFT Mini 1.3" or 1.54" display (240x240)
6. MiniPiTFT 1.14" display (240x135) - WARNING! CUTTING EDGE! WILL UPGRADE YOUR KERNEL TO LATEST
7. Quit without installing

SELECT 1-7:

I entered “3” for PiTFT 2.8″ capacitive touch (240×320)

I then was prompted to set the rotation of the screen

Select rotation:
1. 90 degrees (landscape)
2. 180 degrees (portait)
3. 270 degrees (landscape)
4. 0 degrees (portait)

SELECT 1-4: 

I entered “3” for 270 degrees (landscape).

I was prompted to allow the console to appear on the screen

Would you like the console to appear on the PiTFT display? [y/n]
y

I rebooted

Reboot [y/n]
y

Installing PADD to display PiHole stats on the LCD

I followed this guide to install PADD (the software that displays the PiHole stats on the LCD screen)

cd ~
wget -N https://github.com/jpmck/PADD/files/4320681/padd.txt
rename padd.txt paddsimon.sh
chmod +x paddsimon.sh

Making PADD starts at boot

Edit this file

sudo nano  ~/.bashrc

and add the following to the end of the file

# Run PADD
# If we're on the PiTFT screen (ssh is xterm)
if [ "$TERM" == "linux" ] ; then
  while :
  do
    /root/paddsimon.sh
    sleep 0.2
  done
fi

I rebooted the PI.

Turning the screen OFF from the CLI

I created a bash script with this contents to turn the screen off

#!/bin/bash
gpio -g pwm 18 0

Turning the screen ON from the CLI

I created a bash script with this contents to turn the screen on

#!/bin/bash
gpio -g pwm 18 1023

How to Update the PiHole from the CLI

I ran the following command to update the PiHole block lists

pihole -g

Output…

  [i] Pi-hole blocking is enabled
  [i] Neutrino emissions detected...
  [✓] Pulling blocklist source list into range

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (hosts)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: mirror1.malwaredomains.com (justdomains)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: sysctl.org (hosts)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: s3.amazonaws.com (simple_tracking.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: s3.amazonaws.com (simple_ad.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: hosts-file.net (ad_servers.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (ytadblock.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Easyprivacy.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Prigent-Ads.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: gitlab.com (notrack-blocklist.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (hosts)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (spy.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: www.github.developerdan.com (ads-and-tracking-extended.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: hostfiles.frogeye.fr (firstparty-trackers-hosts.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: hostfiles.frogeye.fr (multiparty-trackers-hosts.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (android-tracking.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (SmartTV.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (AmazonFireTV.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Airelle-trc.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: bitbucket.org (Mandiant_APT1_Report_Appendix_D.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: gist.githubusercontent.com (Test.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: gitlab.com (notrack-malware.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: hosts-file.net (emd.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: hosts-file.net (exp.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: hosts-file.net (grm.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: hosts-file.net (psh.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: isc.sans.edu (suspiciousdomains_Medium.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: mirror.cedia.org.ec (immortal_domains.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: someonewhocares.org (hosts)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: phishing.army (phishing_army_blocklist_extended.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch (CW_C2_DOMBL.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch (LY_C2_DOMBL.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch (RW_DOMBL.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch (TC_C2_DOMBL.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch (TL_C2_DOMBL.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (spy.txt)
  [✗] Status: Not found
  [✗] List download failed: no cached list available

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (hosts)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (hosts)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (hosts)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (hosts)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: raw.githubusercontent.com (hosts)
  [✗] Status: Not found
  [✗] List download failed: no cached list available

  [i] Target: reddestdream.github.io (minimalhosts)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: s3.amazonaws.com (simple_malvertising.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (AdguardDNS.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Airelle-hrsk.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Easylist.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Prigent-Malware.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Prigent-Phishing.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (Shalla-mal.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (SamsungSmart.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: v.firebog.net (w3kbl.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: www.malwaredomainlist.com (hosts.txt)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: www.squidblacklist.org (dg-malicious.acl)
  [✗] Status: Connection Timed Out (Cloudflare)
  [✗] List download failed: no cached list available

  [i] Target: zerodot1.gitlab.io (hosts)
  [✓] Status: No changes detected

  [i] Target: zeustracker.abuse.ch (blocklist.php?download=domainblocklist)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: www.joewein.net (dom-bl.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful

  [i] Target: www.networksec.org (block.txt)
  [✓] Status: Retrieval successful
  [i] Received empty file: using previously cached list

  [✓] Consolidating blocklists
  [✓] Extracting domains from blocklists
  [i] Number of domains being pulled in by gravity: 1178534
  [✓] Removing duplicate domains
  [i] Number of unique domains trapped in the Event Horizon: 954486
  [i] Number of whitelisted domains: 2
  [i] Number of blacklisted domains: 0
  [i] Number of regex filters: 0
  [✓] Parsing domains into hosts format
  [✓] Cleaning up stray matter

  [✓] Force-reloading DNS service
  [✓] DNS service is running
  [✓] Pi-hole blocking is Enabled

I can view all possible command line options by running 

pihole /?

Output..

Usage: pihole [options]
Example: 'pihole -w -h'
Add '-h' after specific commands for more information on usage

Whitelist/Blacklist Options:
  -w, whitelist       Whitelist domain(s)
  -b, blacklist       Blacklist domain(s)
  --wild, wildcard     Wildcard blacklist domain(s)
  --regex, regex       Regex blacklist domains(s)
                        Add '-h' for more info on whitelist/blacklist usage

Debugging Options:
  -d, debug           Start a debugging session
                        Add '-a' to enable automated debugging
  -f, flush           Flush the Pi-hole log
  -r, reconfigure     Reconfigure or Repair Pi-hole subsystems
  -t, tail            View the live output of the Pi-hole log

Options:
  -a, admin           Web interface options
                        Add '-h' for more info on Web Interface usage
  -c, chronometer     Calculates stats and displays to an LCD
                        Add '-h' for more info on chronometer usage
  -g, updateGravity   Update the list of ad-serving domains
  -h, --help, help    Show this help dialog
  -l, logging         Specify whether the Pi-hole log should be used
                        Add '-h' for more info on logging usage
  -q, query           Query the adlists for a specified domain
                        Add '-h' for more info on query usage
  -up, updatePihole   Update Pi-hole subsystems
                        Add '--check-only' to exit script before update is perfo                                                     rmed.
  -v, version         Show installed versions of Pi-hole, Web Interface & FTL
                        Add '-h' for more info on version usage
  uninstall           Uninstall Pi-hole from your system
  status              Display the running status of Pi-hole subsystems
  enable              Enable Pi-hole subsystems
  disable             Disable Pi-hole subsystems
                        Add '-h' for more info on disable usage
  restartdns          Restart Pi-hole subsystems
  checkout            Switch Pi-hole subsystems to a different Github branch
                        Add '-h' for more info on checkout usage

After 1 Week

After 1 week stats were rolling into the PIHole.

40% of all traffic was being blocked.

I could see blocked and allowed domain calls

I can white list domains if they are blocked.

Done

This is what it looks like done

PiHole stats on the LCD screen

View of the pi from the left hand side

View of the pi from the right hand side

Nice

After 2 month(s)

After 2 months the PiHole served 266,737 DNS requests. 95,268 requests were blocked (13,000 ad’s, tens of thousands of trackers.

Did it block Ad’s

Mostly yes. Not all advertisements are blocked but most are.

Some YouTube Advertisements seem to get through but I am seeing far less Advertisements in web pages

Troubleshooting

I needed to white list “events.gfe.nvidia.com” to allow my video card drivers to upodate.

Cooling

The Raspberry Pi is running cool at 47c (even though it is in a tight space).

I might add a heat pipe to it and have an external fan.  I will thermal epoxy the hat pipe to the Pi CPU and run it outside to a external heat sink and fan.

I have many spare heat sinks laying around.

I will update when the part’s arrive.

Rotating the screen

I did exit my /boot/config.txt to rotate my LCD Screen orientation 

Buttons

Read this guide to see how I setup a Python script to make my buttons work.

Do edit your /boot.config.txt to configure your screen rotation (if need be) and to check if the LCD screen is setup (by Adafruit)

framebuffer_width=240
framebuffer_height=320

# --- added by adafruit-pitft-helper Sun 8 Mar 2020 12:29:49 AM AEDT ---

dtparam=spi=on
dtparam=i2c1=on
dtparam=i2c_arm=on
dtoverlay=pitft28-capacitive,speed=64000000,fps=30
dtoverlay=pitft28-capacitive,rotate=270,touch-swapxy=true,touch-invy=true

# --- end adafruit-pitft-helper Sun 0 Mar 2020 12:29:49 AM AEDT ---

Handy Links

Handy Guide: https://learn.adafruit.com/pi-hole-ad-pitft-tft-detection-display/pitft-configuration to configure the LCD Screen

Schematics of the screen: https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/25555

Donate to PiHole: https://pi-hole.net/donate/

Raspberry Pi GPIO Pins: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/gpio/

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