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I was doing some work on my server and noticed that when pi-hole was down, I couldn't access the internet.
You've opted to take control over a critical piece of network infrastructure. This is to be expected.
There's a reason DHCP provides for multiple DNS servers to be listed. Having redundant DNS servers is a common setup. So yes, multiple piholes if you want stability.
Just wanted to add onto your comment for clarity for others, the multiple servers are not redundancy so much as first come first serve, which is why your comment of multiple pi-holes is important.
If you were to list a pihole and say Google DNS as primary and secondary respectively, you may have some DNS queries responded to by Google. Negating the point of having a pi-hole or similar DNS service locally.
A secondary can be a docker container, another physical pi-hole (even a zero-w, which I personally don't recommend being your only way to manage DNS, but is fine when you just need to do some maintenance on the primary).
Could have pihole running on your desktop as a backup
One option is just do a temporary change on your PC to different DNS servers while you work on the stuff.
Otherwise a second PiHole set as the secondary DNS in DHCP would keep things online.
Not sure if this is common knowledge but Pi-hole can also run in a docker container, it doesn’t have to be a raspberry pi. I have it running on portainer on two different machine in my house. I’m a systems architect by trade so there no kill like overkill 😅
You might be a nerd when you have to schedule maintenance at your own house.
Another trick is setting up a guest/secondary AP that don't use pi-hole. When your pihole is down, just switch to the secondary AP. Most routers can setup multiple APs, though not all can setup different dns server for the other APs.
On Mikrotik I have a script that runs every 30sec. If pi-hole not responding, router switches to public cloudflare dns records, otherwise to pi-hole IP.
This setup works like a charm.
P.S. I am using Blocky, but it's almost the same as Pi-Hole.
EDIT: Since at least 2 guys asked how to do it:
https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?p=866934#p866934
Don't forget to configure Mikrotik router to act as passthrough DNS server with cache (for performance) and configure DHCP server's DNS to router's IP.
That sounds cool. I've never messed with scripts on Mikrotik, but would it be possible to share what you have?
I'm guessing a relatively short DHCP lease time is also in play so devices can get the new DNS address? Or do you have Mikrotik set as the DNS server?
I have my pi-hole setup as the upstream DNS in my router, with cloudflare as a secondary DNS. That way, all my devices always use the router for DNS (since that's what is advertised in my DHCP) and the router then uses pi-hole if it's available, or cloudflare if it isn't. But the individual device doesn't get to choose between different servers.
The vast majority of devices that allow setting multiple DNS servers do not strictly prioritise one over the other even if they label it as primary and secondary.
That's why I don't let every device decide individually. I know my router (FritzBox) prioritizes the pi-hole (it's even called "preferred" and "alternative" DNS-Server in the UI)
When it comes to a “secondary”DNS... there is nothing like a primary and secondary DNS server. These indications are quite misleading but many systems adopted it this way. Pihole only list the DNS servers as primary and secondary, because this is what the providers write on their pages. The bad phrasing is supported especially by how Windows handles it.
The ONLY DNS server you should have set on your network is a/the PiHole(s).
~~Use something like AdGuard or NextDNS as your secondary resolver~~
Check out the comment by @[email protected]
When it comes to a “secondary”DNS... there is nothing like a primary and secondary DNS server. These indications are quite misleading but many systems adopted it this way. Pihole only list the DNS servers as primary and secondary, because this is what the providers write on their pages. The bad phrasing is supported especially by how Windows handles it.
The ONLY DNS server you should have set on your network is a/the PiHole(s).
Primary and secondary dns is not a thing. There is no priority for DNS. Depending on the device it will use ether address and will only try the other on failure.
Windows calls them 'preferred' and 'alternate' DNS servers. That roughly translates to primary/secondary.
Yeah, that's how they are named, my experience showed that the devices used whichever of the two they wanted.
That's why you usually have two piholes, or adguard homes
And can even synchronize them
I use Nextdns for this reason. DNS is critical for Wife Acceptance Factor
You mentioned you have an Asus router. Which one? Why not move to hosting your stuff on the router? https://www.snbforums.com/forums/asuswrt-merlin.42/ Sure it doesn't completely solve the issue but in my experience it's incredibly stable, and more so people expect to restart the router if the Internet isn't working which simplifies things too. Also beneficial is that you can give different clients different DNS servers comfortably.
Specifically, check out https://diversion.ch/ for dns blocking but its capable of a lot more.
I have Pihole in a Proxmox LXC Container that does just that. Just Pihole. It is set to automatically restart.
All for that Reason that you just named.
