Pi-hole

[nelsonic]

Considering setting up a Pi-hole on the @home network to eliminate ads:
https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_sinkhole

Todo

• Locate Raspberry Pi 4 and all the accessories needed to run it.
• Follow Pi-hole tutorial and get it setup
• Assign Static IP on Unifi Switch.

[nelsonic]

How to Set Up a Pi-Hole System on a Raspberry Pi: https://youtu.be/roYduABVjo8

[nelsonic]

Read through the site and code ... 👀
This feels "too good to be true" ... 💭
Like there must be a catch or lax security ... 🤷‍♂️

[nelsonic]

I'm really sick of Ads ... 😢 ⏳
just trying to research something for work and being subjected to garbage that I can't skip!

I understand that's how some content creators get paid for their work. 🙄
But they are everywhere and so distracting / time consuming.

I'm Seriously considering setting up a pi-hole on our @home network. 💭

[nelsonic]

World's Greatest Pi-hole Tutorial: https://youtu.be/cE21YjuaB6o

[nelsonic]

Want to try and pick this up tonight.🤞🏼
Going to run it on a RPi 4. But if I can downgrade to a lower resource/power RPi 3 I will; later. 🤞🏼

[nelsonic]

https://www.crosstalksolutions.com/the-worlds-greatest-pi-hole-and-unbound-tutorial-2023/

[nelsonic]

While searching for Landry Room layouts dwyl/home#240
I was served this obnoxious Ad:

This is getting a bit rediculous ...

I've never searched for anything remotely related to this Ad
but it's taking up 1/3 of my screen ... 🤦‍♂️

[nelsonic]

High Availability Pi-Hole? https://youtu.be/IFVYe3riDRA

[nelsonic]

I have a million better things to be doing than this. 🙄
But sadly so many of the useful websites I try to visit have obnoxious Ads on them
that I'm forced to block them at the network level.

[nelsonic]

Just tried to run:

git clone [email protected]:dwyl/learn-raspberry-pi.git

Got the following strange warning:

Cloning into 'learn-raspberry-pi'...
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
SHA256:uNiVztksCsDhcc0u9e8BujQXVUpKZIDTMczCvj3tD2s.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /Users/n/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending RSA key in /Users/n/.ssh/known_hosts:1
Host key for github.com has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

[nelsonic]

Apparently a known + recent issue: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75830783/why-are-connections-to-github-over-ssh-throwing-an-error-warning-remote-host ... 🙄

[nelsonic]

Solution:

ssh-keygen -R github.com

[nelsonic]

Using Raspberry PI Imager (v1.7.5), flashing Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) to a fresh SanDisk Ultra MicroSDHC UHS-1 Card`:

While that is writing I'm going to head over to the "networking area" of the workshop
and connect the Raspberry PI v3 B (ancient, but apparently more than adequate for Pi-hole)
to the Switch and get everything ready so I can plug-in the MicroSD and get started.

[nelsonic]

[nelsonic]

RPi3B booted and is currently updating …

this might take a while so I’m going back to my desk to do something else …

[nelsonic]

I’d forgotten how slow RPi3 is … ⏳

[nelsonic]

Obvs, but is going to require more effort …

[nelsonic]

Configuring static up address on ISP router:

[nelsonic]

The ISP Router is garbage it does not allow a private DNS on the internal network. 🤦‍♂️

[nelsonic]

Starting again from scratch. ⏳

[nelsonic]

Updating … ⏳🙄

[nelsonic]

Installing …

[nelsonic]

Configured and already blocking requests to Ads! 🎉

[nelsonic]

Added more blocked lists:

[nelsonic]

quick test: visit youtube in chrome incognito

No ad.

[nelsonic]

Need a more comprehensive list ...
https://github.com/Ewpratten/youtube_ad_blocklist
Add: http://gh-pages.ewpratten.com/youtube_ad_blocklist/hosts.ipv4.txt

[nelsonic]

when I visit some sites I see a few of these:

But it's a lot better than an obnoxious ad. 🎉

[nelsonic]

I don't usually go looking for websites that have ads on them ... obvs ...
But the random site I was viewing last week for my research dwyl/home#240 (comment)
is not clean as a whistle. No more annoying/irrelevant ads; just content.
I'm happy.

[nelsonic]

Just visited BuzzFeed (notorious for ads): https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinchirico/surprisingly-gorgeous-homes-made-from-shipping-containers didn't see a single one. 🎉

[nelsonic]

By far the biggest advantage of having a DNS server on our internal network is query caching!
It makes the initial page load for the pages we visit frequently noticeably faster. 🐎

[nelsonic]

@iteles please confirm if you are seeing ads tomorrow when connected to the @home network. 👌

[nelsonic]

The Pi-hole has been working fine for the past 11 months. ✅
Recently moved it to the "closet": dwyl/learn-computer-networking#20
It's using a Raspberry Pi 3 which is quite "old" at this point.
But I haven't noticed a delay in accessing any sites. 💭

Ned a way to monitor it. 📊

[nelsonic]

Switched to the MEO network briefly to click on a product link in Google SERP (researching a workshop tool)
Then checked the BBC news and see a massive ad for a combustion engine motorcycle:

Obviously Google Knows my approximate age, gender and income so they are serving me mid-life-crisis motorcycles ... 🤣
Love Ducati, and if I was going to burn non-renewable fossil fuels for thrill-seeking, Multistrada for sure! 🏍️
Switching back to home so I don't have to waste my time seeing ads for stuff I'm never gonna buy ... 🙃

Much sooner buy a silent yacht and go sailing around the world! ⛵
But they don't need to advertise ... if you can afford it, you know where to find one. 😉
Anyway ... back to work!!