Having issues trying to get pi-hole to work with PIA on my WIndows machine.

Redn2000Redn2000
in Windows VPN Setup
I've been trying to figure out for the past few days why my Pi-hole setup isn't working with my Windows 10 PC. I've tried setting the pi as the DNS server for the TAP driver as well as the regular ethernet driver, and have had no luck. I can't change the DNS settings in my router unfortunately thanks to it being an ISP provided one. If someone that has a similar setup or had similar issues could help, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Comments

  • Omnibus_IVOmnibus_IV
    The PC DNS settings should override the router DNS settings. At least, with my limited testing I was able to override the router. When you say you have had no luck can you be more specific. What are you trying to do and what steps have to taken to do that? Which ISP router do you have? More information will help the community help you.
  • Redn2000Redn2000
    Omnibus_IV said:
    When you say you have had no luck can you be more specific. What are you trying to do and what steps have to taken to do that? Which ISP router do you have? More information will help the community help you.
    I was attempting to set up pi-hole for adblocking on my Windows PC, but wasn't able to see any results after checking that everything was set up. I did test to see if it was working directly on the pi, and does after testing it by blocking a couple websites. What I've done so far is change my DNS settings for the TAP driver and my ethernet interface to the pi. My ISP router is from comcast, so it's a bit locked down in areas such as the DNS settings. As for PIA, I enabled IPv6 leak protection while it's on, but this issue seems to persist even with PIA entirely off/disabled.
  • Max-PMax-P
    First things first: we highly recommend against doing this because you are introducing a DNS leak to your setup (unless your Pi-hole itself also has the VPN setup on it). The reason PIA redirects your DNS is to prevent metadata about your browsing habits to your ISP by ensuring DNS goes through the VPN and come directly from the VPN server. If that's fine for you, then no worries, better safe than sorry!

    To get this working, you need to have DNS leak protection off and MACE off (because it's based on DNS), as well as having your Pi-hole DNS set on both the regular adapter and the TAP adapter. This should in theory override the DNS pushed by OpenVPN, but it's possible newer versions of the app are more aggressive with this.

    If the app doesn't want to cooperate, I would suggest our regular OpenVPN setup which will let you customize the details of the connection a lot more (where we can ultimately block the DNS push option if needs be).
  • Redn2000Redn2000
    Ah, I didn't consider that having my Pi set up without PIA might cause a DNS leak. I've looked around, but is there a recommended way to set up PIA on my Pi if I leave it headless? And if I have it on the VPN as well, will my Windows client pick up on it, or will I still have to go through the OpenVPN setup?
  • Max-PMax-P
    @Redn2000 ; Normally it's just a matter of downloading the OpenVPN ZIP from our website, extracting it to /etc/openvpn/ and rename the profile you want to use to .conf. I'm not sure how Pi-hole works or is set up however so you may need to do other things.

    There's also this script from another forum user that aims to simplify manual setups, but I don't know if it will conflict with your Pi-hole DNS: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/openvpn/openvpn.zip


    You will however need to make your Windows computer still use the Pi-hole as DNS, so you may need to set up OpenVPN as well still sadly.
  • Redn2000Redn2000
    I actually found that really handy script shortly before your post. If OpenVPN on Windows isn't too much of a hassle to set up, and at least gives me a system tray icon, I'd be happy to use it.
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