Pi Hole
I set up a Pi-hole virtual machine to serve as a DNS blocker for my home network. This allows me to block ads across all devices on the network and enables the use of local A records for accessing my local services.
An ad DNS hole, like Pi-hole, is a network-wide ad blocker. It acts as a DNS server, intercepting and filtering DNS requests to block domains associated with ads, trackers, and malicious content. This helps eliminate ads on all connected devices and enhances privacy and network performance.
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I sourced adlists from Firebog by visiting their site, selecting categorized blocklists, and importing the URLs into Pi-hole's blocklist settings for efficient ad and tracker blocking across my network.
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I created local A records for my home network services by assigning each service a hostname (e.g., 'router.loca'l, 'uptimekuma.local', 'crafty.local', and 'pihole.local') and mapping them to their respective IP addresses within Pi-hole's local DNS settings. This allows me to access each service conveniently using its hostname instead of an IP address.
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