Free, open source, and highly scalable DNS sinkhole.
Pi-hole is a DNS sinkhole that filters out requests to ad-serving domains, blocking ads and improving network performance. With Pi-hole, you can actively monitor every DNS request made on your network and block requests as they come in.
Deploying the Pi-hole Marketplace App
The Linode Marketplace allows you to easily deploy software on a Linode using the Linode Cloud Manager.
- Log in to the Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Compute Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.
- Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.
- Fill out all required Options for the selected app as well as any desired Advanced Options (which are optional). See the Configuration Options section for details.
- Complete the rest of the form as discussed within the Getting Started > Create a Linode.
- Click the Create Linode button. Once the Linode has provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the Linode is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail. To determine if the installation has completed, open the Linode’s Lish console and wait for the system login prompt to appear.
- Follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section.
Software installation should complete within 5-10 minutes after the Linode has finished provisioning.
Configuration Options
Pi-hole Options
Here are the additional options available for this Marketplace App:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Pi-hole user password | This will be the password to get into the Pi-hole dashboard. Required |
| Your Linode API Token | Your Linode API Token is needed to create DNS records. If this is provided along with the subdomain and domain fields, the installation attempts to create DNS records via the Linode API. If you don’t have a token, but you want the installation to create DNS records, you must create one before continuing. |
| Subdomain | The subdomain you wish the installer to create a DNS record for during setup. The suggestion given is www. The subdomain should only be provided if you also provide a domain and API Token. |
| Domain | The domain name where you wish to host your Focalboard instance. The installer creates a DNS record for this domain during setup if you provide this field along with your API Token. |
| Email for SOA Record | This email is for the SOA DNS Record. |
| The limited sudo user to be created for the Linode | This is the limited user account to be created for the Linode. This account has sudo user privileges. |
| The password for the limited sudo user | Set a password for the limited sudo user. The password must meet the complexity strength validation requirements for a strong password. This password can be used to perform any action on your server, similar to root, so make it long, complex, and unique. |
| The SSH Public Key that will be used to access the Linode | If you wish to access SSH via Public Key (recommended) rather than by password, enter the public key here. |
| Disable root access over SSH? | Select Yes to block the root account from logging into the server via SSH. Select No to allow the root account to login via SSH. |
General Options
For advice on filling out the remaining options on the Create a Linode form, see Getting Started > Create a Linode. That said, some options may be limited or recommended based on this Marketplace App:
- Supported distributions: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
- Recommended plan: All plan types and sizes can be used.
Getting Started after Deployment
Accessing the Pi-hole App
- After installation is complete, the Pi-hole dashboard is accessible at domain you entered in the beginning of your deployment followed by
/admin.http://example.com/admin
Note: If you did not enter a domain, you can also use your Compute Instance’s rDNS, which may look like 123-0-123-0.ip.linodeusercontent.com. See the Managing IP Addresses guide for information on viewing and setting the rDNS value.
- Once you are in the Pi-hole dashboard, you can click the login tab and enter your Pi-hole user password that you created during the creation of the Linode.
Now that you’ve accessed your dashboard, check out the official Pi-hole documentation to learn how to further utilize your Pi-hole instance.
Note: Currently, Linode does not manage software and systems updates for Marketplace Apps. It is up to the user to perform routine maintenance on software deployed in this fashion.
More Information
You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.
The Pi-hole App was built by Linode. For support regarding app deployment, contact Linode Support via the information listed in the sidebar. For support regarding the tool or software itself, check out the Pi-hole Discourse Community.
