Introduction

Pihole runs great on a Raspberry Pi, but what about other devices? If you have a server lying around that can run Docker, Pihole will work.

Why?

Pihole was created to run on Rasbperry Pi devices, but this shouldn’t be limited to device. There is an official Docker image that can be used on any device that can run Docker. The only caveat is that you’ll need to manually update the container when a new version comes out. Luckily, the following guide will show you how to do it with a script.

Instructions

Make sure you have a device capabile of running Docker first.

Start by pulling the latest pihole image.
```
docker pull pihole/pihole
```
If you already have pihole running, stop it, and remove the container
```
docker stop pihole
docker rm -f pihole
```
We’re going to create two files on the device running docker so we can create mount points later: docker-compose.yml and resolv.conf.
```
sudo mkdir /opt/pihole
sudo touch /opt/pihole/docker-compose.yml
sudo touch /opt/pihole/resolv.conf
cd /opt/pihole
```

The docker-compose.yml file should look something like the following. This is what you’ll be running each time you get a new container pihole with updates.

version: "3"

# https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole/blob/master/README.md

services:
pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    # For DHCP it is recommended to remove these ports and instead add: network_mode: "host"
    ports:
    - "53:53/tcp"
    - "53:53/udp"
    - "67:67/udp"
    - "80:80/tcp"
    environment:
    TZ: 'America/Toronto'
    # WEBPASSWORD: 'set a secure password here or it will be random'
    # Volumes store your data between container upgrades
    volumes:
    - './etc-pihole:/etc/pihole'
    - './etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d'
    - './resolv.conf:/etc/resolv.conf'
    #   https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole#note-on-capabilities
    cap_add:
    - NET_ADMIN
    restart: unless-stopped # Recommended but not required (DHCP needs NET_ADMIN)

The resolv.conf should look like the following. This is required so you can update your lists in pihole without issues.
```
search home
nameserver 127.0.0.1
options ndots:0
```
With the two files in place, simply run this command:
```
docker-compose up -d
```
Once pihole is up and running, check your device’s IP address and go to http://<device-ip>/admin to login with what ever password you’ve set. If it’s working, remove any old pihole images.
```
docker image prune -f
```

Summary

Because we’re mounting files to the Docker container, we can pull the latest pihole image and spin up new containers with the docker-compose.yml file that mounts the persistant files back in place. Because the pihole images get updated every month, you can automate this task with a shell script. Create update_pihole.sh and add the following:

#! /bin/bash
export PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games"
docker pull pihole/pihole
docker stop pihole
docker rm -f pihole
docker-compose -f /opt/pihole/docker-compose.yml up -d
docker image prune -f

Note, your PATH might be different, so do an echo $PATH and use that instead. Without this, the cronjob won’t run.

To automate this further, you can create a cronjob in Linux by doing the following:

Update your permissions to allow your script to execute
```
chmod +x ~/update_pihole.sh
```
Start by entering crontab -e to edit our cronjobs. (I used /bin/nano but you can use whatever you want.)
At the bottom of the file, paste this command. This runs the update_pihole.sh script on the first of each month at midnight.
```
0 0 1 * * /opt/pihole/update_pihole.sh
```
Save the file and exit. You should see crontab: installing new crontab.
To check your cronjob:
```
crontab -l
```
Check to make sure the cron service is running:
```
service cron status
```
If cron is not running, start the service:
```
sudo cron start
```

Reference

https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole#method-3-using-docker-to-deploy-pi-hole
https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole#quick-start
https://hub.docker.com/r/pihole/pihole/tags

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Running Pihole with Docker

...and automating updates with cron

Introduction

Why?

Instructions

Summary

Reference