Pi-hole®: The multi-platform, network-wide ad blocker

Block ads for all your devices without the need to install client-side software.

Executive Summary

The Pi-hole blocks ads at the DNS-level, so all your devices are protected.

• Easy-to-install - our intelligent installer walks you through the process with no additional software needed on client devices
• Universal - ads are blocked in non-browser locations such as ad-supported mobile apps and smart TVs
• Quick - installation takes less than ten minutes and it really is that easy
• Informative - an administrative Web interface shows ad-blocking statistics
• Lightweight - designed to run on minimal resources
• Scalable - even in large environments, Pi-hole can handle hundreds of millions of queries (with the right hardware specs)
• Powerful - advertisements are blocked over IPv4 and IPv6
• Fast - it speeds up high-cost, high-latency networks by caching DNS queries and saves bandwidth by not downloading advertisement elements
• Versatile - Pi-hole can function also function as a DHCP server

Your Support Still Matters

Digital Ocean helps with our infrastructure, but our developers are all volunteers so your donations help keep us innovating. Sending a donation using our links below helps us offset a portion of our monthly costs.

• Donate via PayPal
• Bitcoin Address: 1GKnevUnVaQM2pQieMyeHkpr8DXfkpfAtL

Other Ways To Support Us

If you're not the type to give away money, there are other ways support us: you can sign up for services through our affiliate links, which will also help us offset some of the costs associated with keeping Pi-hole operational.

One-Step Automated Install

1. Install a supported operating system
2. Run the command below (it downloads this script in case you want to read over it first!)

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

Alternative Semi-Automated Install Methods

If you wish to read over the script before running it, run nano basic-install.sh to open the file in a text viewer.

Clone our repository and run the automated installer from your device.

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole.git Pi-hole
cd Pi-hole/automated\ install/
bash basic-install.sh

Or

wget -O basic-install.sh https://install.pi-hole.net
bash basic-install.sh

Once installed, configure your router to have DHCP clients use the Pi-hole as their DNS server and then any device that connects to your network will have ads blocked without any further configuration.

If your router does not support setting the DNS server, you can use Pi-hole's built in DHCP server; just be sure to disable DHCP on your router first.

Alternatively, you can manually set each device to use Pi-hole as their DNS server.

What is Pi-hole and how do I install it?

Get Help Or Connect With Us On The Web

• Users Forum
• FAQs
• Feature requests
• Wiki
• Tweet @The_Pi_Hole
• Reddit /r/pihole
• Pi-hole channel
• 

Technical Details

The Pi-hole is an advertising-aware DNS/Web server. If an ad domain is queried, a small Web page or GIF is delivered in place of the advertisement.

Gravity: Finding Ads To Block

The gravity.sh script does most of the magic. The script pulls in over 100,000 known ad-serving domains from many sources and aggregates them into a single list.

Additional Blocklists

You can also use Pi-hole to block additional domains beyond the defaults. It can even be used to block malware or phising domains. The Big Blocklist Collection is a good resource for finding additional domains to block.

Other Operating Systems

The automated install is only for a clean install of a Debian family or Fedora based system, such as the Raspberry Pi. However, this script will work for most UNIX-like systems, some with some slight modifications that we can help you work through. If you can install dnsmasq and a web server, it should work OK. If there are other platforms you'd like supported, let us know.

Web Interface

The Web interface will be installed automatically so you can view stats and change settings. You can find it at:

http://192.168.1.x/admin/index.php or http://pi.hole/admin

Whitelist and blacklist

Domains can be whitelisted and blacklisted using either the web interface or the command line. See the wiki page for more details

Settings

The settings page lets you control and configure your Pi-hole. You can do things like:

• enable Pi-hole's built-in DHCP server
• exclude domains from the graphs
• configure upstream DNS servers
• and more!

Built-in DHCP Server

Pi-hole ships with a built-in DHCP server. This allows you to let your network devices use Pi-hole as their DNS server if your router does not let you adjust the DHCP options.

API

A basic read-only API can be accessed at /admin/api.php. It returns the following JSON:

{
    "domains_being_blocked": "136708",
    "dns_queries_today": "18108",
    "ads_blocked_today": "14648",
    "ads_percentage_today": "80.89"
}

The same output can be achieved on the CLI by running chronometer.sh -j

Real-time Statistics

You can view real-time stats via ssh or on an 2.8" LCD screen. This is accomplished via chronometer.sh.

Pi-hole Projects

• An ad blocking Magic Mirror
• Pi-hole stats in your Mac's menu bar
• Get LED alerts for each blocked ad
• Pi-hole on Ubuntu 14.04 on VirtualBox
• Docker Pi-hole container (x86 and ARM)
• Splunk: Pi-hole Visualiser
• Pi-hole Chrome extension (open source)
• Go Bananas for CHiP-hole ad blocking
• Sky-Hole
• Pi-hole in the Cloud!
• unRaid-hole--Repo and more info
• Pi-hole on/off button
• Minibian Pi-hole
• Windows Tray Stat Application
• Let your blink1 device blink when Pi-hole filters ads
• Pi-hole Prometheus exporter: a Prometheus exporter for Pi-hole
• Pi-hole Droid - open source Android client
• Windows DNS Swapper, see #1400

Coverage

• Adafruit livestream install
• TekThing: 5 fun, easy projects for a Raspberry Pi
• Pi-hole on Adafruit's blog
• The Defrag Show - MSDN/Channel 9
• MacObserver Podcast 585
• Medium: Block All Ads For $53
• MakeUseOf: Adblock Everywhere, The Pi-hole Way
• Lifehacker: Turn Your Pi Into An Ad Blocker With A Single Command!
• Pi-hole on TekThing
• Pi-hole on Security Now! Podcast
• Foolish Tech Show
• Pi-hole on Ubuntu
• Catchpoint: iOS 9 Ad Blocking
• Build an Ad-Blocker for less than 10$ with Orange-Pi