Hello, friends.

So I’ve had my Pi-Hole setup for awhile now and it’s great. I’d like to get Wireguard working with it, too, so I could browse the internet without loads of ads and trackers on the go.

However, small issue. All DNS traffic is forcibly routed to my ISP. If you need some details, I made this post on the Pi-Hole userspace.

I’m in America and my ISP is Spectrum. I was wondering if there’s a way I could convince technical support to allow me to use a recursive DNS for privacy/security (more-so the second of the two) purposes, or if it is even possible to convince them to do this. I don’t know if there’s a specific number I should contact, email I should email to, or if I just have to endure the nightmare of getting passed around by customer service one Saturday. Any recommendations would be great.

An interesting note for anyone who’s ISP is Spectrum, their DNS service, at least for me, uses OpenDNS with dnsmasq-2.57. That version of dnsmasq is over 10 years old. You see if this is the case for you with

dig CHAOS TXT version.bind @192.33.4.12 +short
dig CHAOS TXT version.bind @198.97.190.53 +short

Or something similar if those IP addresses are different for you. You can see that running those commands were a part of the steps I was asked to take in that Pi-Hole userspace post.

EDIT 1:

For those interested, here’s some Github gist I found that shows how to use unbound + stubby for have a recursive DNS + DNS-over-HTTPS. There’s also this from the DNS Privacy Project.

EDIT 2:

I seems that initial answer from the Pi-Hole forums was correct. There’s probably something that was set in the firmware for the Netgear router that prevents me from setting up my own DNS servers. However, I notice on the router there’s a “router mode” option that’s on, which I can probably turn off, plug in my Pi to the Netgear device and have the Pi act as my router, thus letting me be able to use it as my DNS server as well. That or just suck it up and buy only a modem, not a router + modem combo.

  • @SheeEttin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    I’ve had Spectrum. They shouldn’t be doing this. See if there’s an option in your account settings. They might call it some kind of malware protection. Else, call support and ask.

    • @AlecStewart1st@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      As I said to someone else, it must be the Netgear modem. If I go to Advanced -> Setup -> Internet Setup and click Use These DNS Servers and put in the address for the Pi-Hole, it prevents me from doing so. Or, rather, I can set the addresses, but then I have no internet access. Hostnames don’t get resolved, so I’m wondering if I’m missing something?

        • @AlecStewart1st@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          Here’s what the Pi-Hole installation says to do in the case of not being able to have your Pi-Hole be the DNS server for your router:

          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 (if it has that feature available).

          So can I or can I not use unbound for a recursive DNS (I known you can do DNS-over-HTTPS with unbound and stubby)? Or am I misunderstanding the steps to eventually use my Pi-Hole as a VPN?

      • Lucid5603English
        2•1 year ago

        If you set the dns address manually for a device instead of relying on DHCP does dns work then? That should work fine no matter what your router is giving out.

        • @AlecStewart1st@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          This is what Pi-Hole tells you to do, maybe I’m misunderstanding something: https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/how-do-i-configure-my-devices-to-use-pi-hole-as-their-dns-server/245

          EDIT: I’m specifying this because I cannot do what’s instructed in that link, and can only have the Pi-Hole be my networks DHCP server. As the post-install instructions say:

          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 (if it has that feature available).

          • Lucid5603English
            1•1 year ago

            Right, that makes sense if you can’t adjust your router’s DNS. However, you can manually change the IP address of the DNS servers you want to use per device. I recommend trying to change the DNS on your computer or something to your pi-hole’s IP address. If you do that and can get internet access you should be good. If not then you can check the pi-hole logs to see if it’s getting any of the DNS queries. Feel free to DM me for more help.