Hello everyone,

first time ever posting on lemmy, feels good 😉

I have a question regarding DHCP in my local network.

My current setup is as follows:

  • DHCP provided by router (Fritz!Box 7490)
  • DNS provided by pi-hole hosted on a raspberry pi
  • DHCP pushes the IP of the raspberry via DHCP to all clients

My problem is: When the raspberry pi (running pi hole) is down for any reason, none of my devices has internet access anymore. This is due to the fact that the Fritz!Box router (aka DHCP server) has no option to push a secondary DNS as a fallback to its clients.

One option would be to buy another router which has the option to push a secondary DNS, which I would prefer to avoid, since otherwise I am happy with the Fritz!Box.

So I am looking for alternative configurations with my existing hardware. I could for example use pi holes DHCP. Or I could use the DHCP server package of a synology NAS which is also part of my local network. Or is there another option, maybe using some DHCP service on the raspberry pi or in a docker container or something like that? Does anyone have experience with one of these setups and can tell me if it is possible to provide the clients with two (prioritized) DNS options? What would you recommend? Thanks!

  • @ChrislyBearEnglish
    4•1 year ago

    Usually you can just send a second DNS server by separating the IPs with a comma.

    That said, I’m running two PiHoles for the exact reason OP noted. These two PiHoles settings are synced with GravitySync.

    If I update one PiHole or it goes down for any reason, the second one is there to pickup the slack.

    Regarding DHCP: I’d probably turn off the stupid FritzBox DHCP because you really can’t set 2 DNS servers (WTF!) and instead use the PiHole(s) for DHCP.

    • @k86kOPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Thanks.

      I think I might try the “pi hole as DHCP” option.