Pi-Hole and Custom DNS with EE Fibre and WiFi Extenders - CURRENTLY INCOMPATIBLE

[burratha]

I have recently joined EE and have the 900 fibre package, and have EE WiFi extenders.

My current setup:

Router (EE Router) DHCP and DNS DISABLED

Pi-Hole. DHCP and DNS ENABLED - the Pi-Hole is providing DNS and distributing IP addresses on my network.

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PROBLEM: When the above configuration is enabled, the WiFi extenders are not recognised as such by the system and are treated like other clients on the network. Therefore the 'mesh' functionality of the system will not work.

CURRENT SOLUTION: Remove the Pi-Hole and allow the router to control the DHCP allocation and DNS.

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I won't do this, as the EE (BT) DNS servers are too restrictive and also do not allow any flexibility for me as a parent and responsible adult. For context, I use a third party paid provider (control-D) to manage my internet content and block adverts and malware accordingly.

Question: I believe it is possible to edit the configuration files of the Raspberry Pi (Pi-Hole) to allow the discs to be seen by the router, which will then allow the full functionality to operate as expected. 

Can someone please assist me in the intricacies of editing a .conf file or two in the /etc/dnsmasq.d folder and get this thing working?

Thanks in advance

Steve

[bobpullen]

@burratha - having found myself in almost this same position, I can probably help.

Did you configure the Pihole yourself, and are you comfortable accessing the command line of the Rasberry Pi e.g. using SSH?

[burratha]

Hi

Thank you for replying.

I set the Pi-Hole up myself, but relied heavily on guides. I'm reasonably comfortable with ssh, but would need a bit of hand-holding if you don't mind?

The pi-Hole is reasonably standard, with a few additional lists loaded. I use it for DHCP and DNS. The DNS loops back to a Stubby installation and unbound, to encrypt the DNS traffic - I use NextDNS or ControlD for DNS.

I just want to be able to use the extenders, rather than the third party discs I'm using now.

[bobpullen · Accepted solution]

OK, I think this should work ...

Before you start, you will want the MAC address of your extenders. This is printed on the label on the bottom of the device in *tiny* font! What's below also assumes that you haven't changed the default IP address of the EE hub, and there is nothing else on your network using the local IP addresses in the proposed config file (192.168.1.10 and 192.168.1.20 in the example provided)...

1. SSH to the Raspberry Pi, and navigate to the dnsmasq config directory: -

cd /etc/dnsmasq.d

2. Take a look at what's in the directory, I expect you'll see a handful of numbered config files, e.g: -

$ ls
01-pihole.conf       02-pihole-dhcp.conf        03-pihole-static-dhcp.conf

3. Create a new config file prefixed with the next logical number, eg: -

 $ sudo nano 04-pihole-bypass.conf

4. This will open the nano text editor. Copy and paste the following into nano, replacing 'MA:CA:DD:R:ES:SS' with the mac address for each of your extenders: -

## Bypass pihole using MAC address

# This defines the EE hub as a DNS forwarder
dhcp-option=tag:eesmarthub,6,192.168.1.254

# This sets the EE hub as DNS forwarder for the MAC address below. You need one line per extender
dhcp-host=MA:CA:DD:R:ES:SS,set:eesmarthub,192.168.1.10,smart-wifi-1
dhcp-host=MA:CA:DD:R:ES:SS,set:eesmarthub,192.168.1.20,smart-wifi-2

5. Save the file with CTRL and 'O', then Enter

6. Exit nano with CTRL and 'X' 

7. Restart DNS on the Pihole: -

$ pihole restartdns

8. Power off your extenders

9. Reboot your hub

10. Power on your extenders and cross fingers 🤞

All being well, this will have dnsmasq assign the extenders '192.168.1.254' as their DNS resolver, rather than the IP of your Pihole. This mimics what would happen if you were using the EE hub for DHCP and hopefully 'tricks' things into life.

[burratha]

Thank you so much for taking the time to give a detailed walkthrough.

Unfortunately, after following the guide word-for-word, it actually causes my pi-hole to hang and stop working as DNS/DHCP - see attached screen grabs.

I had to ## the config entries in the .conf file in order for it to work again.

 I appreciate you taking the time out to respond.

[bobpullen]

Are you 100% there are no errors/typos in the config file and that it's sensibly named with a .conf file extension?Perhaps you could send me a copy of your file via private message? 

Are you replacing the relevant part of the config with the actual MAC addresses of your extenders?

Another thought would be to check the permissions/ownership of the file. I'd expect it to match the others that are in that directory, e.g (in bold): -

/etc/dnsmasq.d $ ls -al
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1372 Feb 15 19:52 01-pihole.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 495 Feb 15 19:52 02-pihole-dhcp.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17 Aug 22 2019 03-ovpn.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4101 Feb 13 09:24 04-pihole-static-dhcp.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2020 Feb 13 09:29 05-pihole-bypass.conf

I'm not using Stubby, or any upstream DNS servers, but I am running Unbound and the same config is working a treat for me 🤔

[burratha]

Thank you so much, @bobpullen ... your solution fixed my problem. I owe you a beer!

[bobpullen]

Great stuff! 🙂

For anybody else stumbling across this post in future, you're better off restarting the FTL server in step 7, i.e: -

sudo service pihole-FTL restart