Running Pi-hole for Ad Blocking

Overview

Pi-hole is a DNS sinkhole that blocks many advertising and tracking domains for clients that use it as their DNS resolver. It cannot remove every ad — especially content served from the same domains as video or application traffic. Running it as a container on an ALPON X5 AI or ALPON X4 gives the whole local network ad blocking from one always-on device that stays manageable through ALPON Cloud.

The steps below are identical on ALPON X4 and ALPON X5 AI. For current configuration options and limitations, see the official Pi-hole documentation.

1. 1

   Add the Pi-hole container

   Make sure the pihole/pihole image is available to your device. The recommended path is to push it to your Sixfab Container Registry so deployments are fast and work offline. From your build machine, pull the arm64 image:

   bash · pull the image

   docker pull --platform linux/arm64 pihole/pihole:latest

   Then log in to Sixfab Registry, click + Add Container, and follow the prompts to push the image.

   Pushing images to the Sixfab Container Registry

   For the full walkthrough of tagging and pushing an image, see Update Containers from the Sixfab Container Registry.

   Alternative: deploy straight from Docker Hub

   If you prefer not to use the Sixfab Container Registry, choose “I would like to use my own container path” during deployment and enter pihole/pihole:latest. The container is then pulled directly from Docker Hub (the device needs internet access at deploy time).

2. 2

   Deploy the container on ALPON

   Open your device in ALPON Cloud, go to the Applications section, and click + Deploy. In the Deploy Container window, use these settings:

   Container Name pihole

   Image The Pi-hole image and tag you pushed to the Sixfab Container Registry — or, using the alternative option, pihole/pihole:latest.

   Environment Click + Add More in the Environment section and add the three variables in the first table below.

   Volumes Click + Add More in the Volumes section and add the two volumes in the second table below.

   Enable Host Network Turn this on so Pi-hole can answer DNS queries from the local network.

   Environment variables

   Key	Value	Description
   TZ	Your time zone, e.g. America/New_York	Sets your local time. Find yours in the tz database list.
   FTLCONF_webserver_api_password	A secure password	Creates the password for the Pi-hole dashboard — don’t forget it!
   FTLCONF_dns_interface	eth1	Tells Pi-hole to use the ALPON’s network interface.

   More environment variables

   Environment variables are not limited to these three; see the Pi-hole Docker documentation for the full list.

   Volumes

   Read/Write	Local Path	Target Path
   Read/Write	/root/etc-pihole	/etc/pihole
   Read/Write	/root/etc-dnsmasq.d	/etc/dnsmasq.d

   Click + Deploy to launch Pi-hole on the device.

3. 3

   Open the Pi-hole dashboard

   Once the deployment finishes, find the device's local IP address under Asset Details → Network tab → Interface Monitoring → Details, then open the dashboard in a browser:

   browser · Pi-hole dashboard

   http://<DEVICE_IP>/admin/login.php

   You’ll land on the Pi-hole login page. Sign in with the password you set in FTLCONF_webserver_api_password. If you see the dashboard, you’re almost there — if it doesn't load, confirm the container is running in the Applications section and that Host Network was enabled in step 2.

4. 4

   Set your ALPON as the DNS server

   Now tell your network to use the ALPON as its DNS server. You have two options.

   Option 1: Router DHCP settings (recommended)

   1. Log in to your router: open a browser, enter your router’s IP (often 192.168.1.1), and log in.
   2. Find the DHCP settings: look for something like “LAN Settings” or “DHCP Settings”.
   3. Set the DNS: enter your ALPON’s IP (e.g. 192.168.1.x) as the primary DNS server.
   4. Save and restart: save the settings, then reboot your devices to refresh their DNS settings.

   Every device on your network gets ad blocking automatically — no manual setup needed.

   Option 2: Manual device setup

   If you’d rather not touch your router, configure individual devices:

   • Windows: Network Settings → “Set DNS server manually” → enter the ALPON’s IP.
   • Android/iOS: Wi-Fi Settings → Modify Network → set DNS to the ALPON’s IP.
   • macOS: System Preferences → Network → DNS → add the ALPON’s IP.
5. 5

   Test it out

   Back in the Pi-hole dashboard, check the Query Log. You should see DNS requests flowing through — blocked ads show as “filtered”. Browse a few ad-heavy sites to see the difference: fewer ads and faster loading.