qusal/salt/sys-pihole

sys-pihole

Pi-hole DNS Sinkhole in Qubes OS.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Installation
• Usage
  • Web interface
  • Torified Pi-Hole
  • Local DNS server
  • DNS issues after netvm restart
• Credits

Description

The package will create a standalone qube "sys-pihole". It blocks advertisements and internet trackers by providing a DNS sinkhole. It is a drop in replacement for sys-firewall.

The qube will be attached to the "netvm" of the "default_netvm", in other words, if you are using Qubes OS default setup, it will use "sys-net" as the "netvm", else it will try to figure out what is your upstream link and attach to it.

Installation

Pi-Hole commits and tags are not signed by individuals, but as they are done through the web interface, they have GitHub Web-Flow signature. This is the best verification we can get for Pi-Hole. If you don't trust the hosting provider however, don't install this package.

• Top:

qubesctl top.enable sys-pihole browser
qubesctl --targets=tpl-browser,sys-pihole-browser,sys-pihole state.apply
qubesctl top.disable sys-pihole browser
qubesctl state.apply sys-pihole.appmenus

• State:

qubesctl state.apply sys-pihole.create
qubesctl --skip-dom0 --targets=tpl-browser state.apply browser.install
qubesctl --skip-dom0 --targets=sys-pihole state.apply sys-pihole.install
qubesctl --skip-dom0 --targets=sys-pihole-browser state.apply sys-pihole.configure-browser
qubesctl state.apply sys-pihole.appmenus

If you want to change the global preferences updatevm and default_netvm and the per-qube preference netvm of all qubes from sys-firewall to sys-pihole, run:

qubesctl state.apply sys-pihole.prefs

Usage

Web interface

Pi-hole will be installed with these default settings:

• The DNS provider is Quad9 (filtered, DNSSEC)
• Steven Black's Unified Hosts List is included
• Query logging is enabled to show everything.

You can change the settings via the admin interface:

• URL: http://localhost/admin
• There is no password (access allowed only through localhost)

If you want to view statistics or manage the server through a GUI, open sys-pihole or sys-pihole-browser desktop file pihole-browser.desktop from Dom0. Addresses starting with http or https will be redirected to sys-pihole-browser.

The browser separation from the server is to avoid browsing malicious sites and exposing the browser to direct network on the same machine the server is running. The browser qube is offline and only has access to the admin interface. In other words, it has control over the server functions, if the browser is compromised, it can compromise the server.

Torified Pi-Hole

If you want to combine Pi-Hole with Tor, then you should reconfigure your netvm chaining (will break tor's client stream isolation) as such:

• qube -> sys-pihole -> Tor-gateway -> sys-firewall -> sys-net

Local DNS server

If you want sys-pihole to use itself to resolve DNS queries, enable the service local-dns-server from Dom0 to sys-pihole:

qvm-service sys-pihole local-dns-server 1

Don't forget to restart sys-pihole after the changes.

Note that if Pi-hole as a problem the host will not not be able to reach the internet for updates, syncing time etc.

DNS issues after netvm restart

If you encounter problems with DNS after having upstream netvm route changes, restart Pi-hole DNS from sys-pihole:

pihole restartdns

Credits

• Patrizio Tufarolo
• Unman