[HowTo] Pi-Hole network wide ad-blocking on XBian

[deHakkelaar]

For info about Pi-Hole:
https://pi-hole.net/

This HowTo was performed on a Raspberry Pi B+.
A plain Raspberry Pi B was tested too but was OOMing allot.

Terminal

$ cat /etc/debian_version
9.0

Terminal

$ uname -r -m
4.9.20+ armv6l

Code:

### 1. Stop Kodi(former XBMC):
sudo stop xbmc

### 2. Configure a static IP address using below one because XBian is not using
###    "/etc/dhcpcd.conf" that Pi-Hole is using to set static IP:
###    *Might need a reboot so after, stop Kodi again(step 1) to continue.
sudo xbian-config

### 3. Create missing symlink needed by the pihole-FTL daemon:
sudo ln -s /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/ld-linux.so.3 /lib/ld-linux.so.3

### 4. Install curl:
sudo apt install curl

### 5. Run the Pi-Hole installer:
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

### 6. Have the "pihole-FTL" daemon start at boot as XBian uses "Upstart" as init:
sudo update-rc.d pihole-FTL defaults

### 7. Reboot:
sudo reboot

### 8. Point your browser on the client to the Pi-Hole web GUI:
###      http://<PI-HOLE_IP_ADDRESS>/admin
###    Or if configured DHCP/DNS properly:
###      http://pi.hole/admin

[deHakkelaar]

Am still testing but it looks promising.
If only the Kodi "Web Viewer" addon would display the Pi-Hole admin page properly.

[Skywatch]

@deHakkelaar

Thanks for taking the time to post this. I have installed it today with your instructions and it seems to be working very well now!

Very Good!

[Skywatch]

I was watching the memory usage creeping up, some kind of memory hole.

But it seems that they have fixed this now. With pi-hole,kodi, LCDProc and more running I only see 28% memory used stable.

[Nachteule]

Probably pihole-FTL was the culprit

[Skywatch]

You are most likely correct. I did notice that it got worse if I left a window open monitoring activity, but now it is no problem at all. At least it does give the cpu temp in the display and that prompted me to get a temp controlled fan solution working. Now all is working well and cool too!

[deHakkelaar]

Sweet.
By now I experienced a Pi B+ is not able to keep up sometimes.
Sometimes when starting media or other heavy load tasks, DNS resolution times out (WiFi though).
Have not tried on a Pi 2 yet but reckon that one wont break a sweat.

[Skywatch]

@deHakkelaar,

FWIW I am running on a pi1 model B. It has Xbian with kodi 17.3, a few other progs, a RTC board, a 20x4 LCD display (for kodi), a python controlled fan for cooling, watchdog and now pihole too. Memory use is virtually constant even when streaming radio at about 34-37%. Temp with cooling fan and heatsinks has gone from 60C+ to 35-36C (set to 35C ideal temp), much better! I have about 6 clients using pi hole now with 3000+ DNS requests in the last 24 hours. It runs stable after the latest FTL update. I only use wired ethernet though.

But thank you for posting about pi hole and how to set it up on Xbian, I can now monitor all my DNS traffic in a nice graphic way and get rid of some annoying ads at the same time - As you say, Sweet! .....

[Skywatch]

OK - SO now I have a problem with this (always the case with me it seems)

I have set it up to auto-update over night. But I always get the error "Failed to get D-Bus connection: Unknown error -1".

ANy ideas how to fix? It doesn't seem to affect the functioning, but is annoying/worrisome....

[Nachteule]

(2nd Jul, 2017 11:08 PM)Skywatch Wrote:  OK - SO now I have a problem with this (always the case with me it seems)

I have set it up to auto-update over night. But I always get the error "Failed to get D-Bus connection: Unknown error -1".

ANy ideas how to fix? It doesn't seem to affect the functioning, but is annoying/worrisome....

auto-update of what?

I you configured Pi-Hole for auto-update, I suppose Pi-Hole update script tries to run a systemctl command to start/stop/restart a service or whatever.

Terminal

root@kmcubie:~# LC_ALL=C systemctl status autofs
Failed to get D-Bus connection: Unknown error -1
root@kmcubie:~#

[Nachteule]

This is IMO issue of Pi-Hole

Terminal

root@kmpihole:/etc/cron.d# cat /usr/local/bin/pihole | grep system
if [ -x "$(command -v systemctl)" ]; then
systemctl restart dnsmasq
if [ -x "$(command -v systemctl)" ]; then
systemctl start dnsmasq
::: uninstall Uninstall Pi-hole from your system!

You can see, script pihole is checking only if systemctl is present and executable, but not checking if systemd is running or not

[Skywatch]

Hi Nachteule,

Thanks for jumping in on this, always appreciated.

I first wrote cron jobs to check for updates to the lists and the main programs. Then I found it was already in their config so switched to using that instead.

The error occurs with a reference to DNSmasq at the end of the 'lists' update.

Code:

Refresh lists in dnsmasq...Failed to get D-Bus connection: Unknown error -1
done!
::: DNS service is running

I checked on the web and ran some commands to see if things were running OK and all seemed well, so that was when I posted here.

Off to watch your teams glorious victory in tonights final, so won't be around to talk again until tomorrow.....

[Nachteule]

(3rd Jul, 2017 01:48 AM)Skywatch Wrote:  Off to watch your teams glorious victory in tonights final, so won't be around to talk again until tomorrow.....

Hopefully you're crossing fingers for German team

[Skywatch]

Well, a win is a win I suppose, even if the better team lost

The pihole guy says the problem is with systemd as the following is not how it should be.....

[xbian@kitchen ~ $ systemctl status dnsmasq
Failed to get D-Bus connection: Unknown error -1

and

ps -p 1 -o comm=
init

So look like booting from init and not systemd....

Any ideas ?

[Nachteule]

(5th Jul, 2017 05:45 PM)Skywatch Wrote:  Well, a win is a win I suppose, even if the better team lost

The pihole guy says the problem is with systemd as the following is not how it should be.....

What a stupid answer ...

systemctl is always installed independent if systemd is used or not. Debian Jessie supports three init systems:
systemd (the default one ) sysv and upstart (that XBian uses)

Quote:[xbian@kitchen ~ $ systemctl status dnsmasq
Failed to get D-Bus connection: Unknown error -1

and

ps -p 1 -o comm=
init

So look like booting from init and not systemd....

Sure, XBian is using Upstart

Quote:Any ideas ?

Yeah. They should remove the stupid check if systemctl is installed/executable and use service dnsmasq ... instead (the service wrapper script checks itself which init system is running, so there is NO need to do this in pihole script again)