Hi there, On my router/modem I cannot change the DNS entries, thus just using Adguard/PiHole for DNS blocking ads doesn’t work. Would a seperate Router circumvent this problem? Could I set up Adguard (or PiHole) on a Raspberry and use it as a DNS server for my home network?
The plan would be to use my ISP-provided router just as a modem to connect to the internet. Then us a second router to provide my home network, where also Adguard/PiHole can do their thing.
Would this setup work and how would I need to configure it?
I’ve done something similar in Ireland, where ISP router was the only way to connect. Managed to setup everything on OpenWRT router, but it kept disconnecting, so I put openwrt router behind ISP router.
Interesting thing I found in ISP router is DMZ host - just point it to your own router and that’s it. Basically ISP router doesn’t exist lol.
Then you have absolute freedom with your router.
I ran like this for years. As long as you have DMZ/exposed host functionality everything works great. The only thing that needed some massaging was IPv6, but if you want/need that, you probably know enough about it to get it working.
“Double NAT” is a bit of a bugbear in the home lab community, but as long as you can port forward in bulk you should not even notice it, aside from a tiny bit of additional latency.
Cant you just set PiHole’s IP as DNS on your clients?
Bridge mode on the ISP router is what you want. Then it just passes through the internet connection to the internal router on the edge of your network. It’s what I do with Comcast.
Connect the router’s WAN port into the cable modem. Plug your stuff into the router LAN ports or connect to the new router wifi. Set pi hole to a static address and then set the router’s DNS to point to that. Remove any secondary DNS in the router settings. Reboot everything and make sure it all works. That should be about it.
I had this same problem but Pihole can act as your DHCP server too. I turned off DHCP on my ISP router, turned it on in Pihole and configured my range (with some buffer for static IPs for servers and others) and off it went. When all my clients (laptops, workstations, phones, etc.) requested an IP (which I saw them trickle in almost immediately), they got their IP from Pihole and also automatically directed all DNS queries to Pihole. No need for complicated setups.
Edit: fix typos.
