Every month or so all my devices lose internet and the only way to connect them all back is to disconnect them from the DNS server that Pihole is running.
I set my Pihole to have a static IP but for some reason after around a month or maybe longer, it just fails. This has happened 4 times over the last while and the only fix is to essentially uninstall everything on my Pihole, disable it, and then reconfigure it from scratch again.
I’m not sure what’s going on so any help would be appreciated.
First thought: Is your PiHole's static IP within the range of addresses your DHCP server hands out?
My Pihole lives on my server computer and so the DNS is the same IP address as that computer
Irrelevant, unless your pihole is running on your DHCP server. Does the server running pihole have a statically assigned IP that is within the DHCP range being assigned to other devices?
Static addresses should be outside of your DHCP range, ideally. If you can’t change the range, and assuming sequential handouts of IPs from your router among other things, you can try setting the server’s static IP to a bigger number.
Are we getting a repeat of the guy who's wifi didn't work because of a smart bulb?
Wait, smart bulbs run rogue dhcp servers now?
They're called too-smart bulbs, now.
Lol
Lmao even
Accurate
I assume the issue was the bulb was getting assigned by DHCP the same address that was supposed to be reserved for their PC, thus their wifi appearing not to work for their PC.
Haha not quite. Sounds like an interesting post though. I’ll have to look that one up. From all the help given to me here though it looks like my “static” ip is within dhcp range so my router is giving everyone else my key to the castle and therefore invalidating my key.
Yea, duplicate IP addresses lead to some funny business. Toss a coin to see if a network packet will arrive basically.
The solution is to adjust the DHCP range or use static DHCP on the router. The latter just means that the router will assign the same IP to the specified computer every time.
That sounds horrible.
Oh my, I didn’t catch that one but will be searching for it!
I love* solving wonky user issues. People do the darndest things.
*Subject to tolerance and patience levels of both user and self
The static address should be assigned from the dhcp server.
Assigning a static address on the nic is a recipe for issues.
Set up a static assignment in your dhcp server.
I’m not able to log into my router in order to edit any of my dhcp settings 😭 little caveat there.
Then that’s likely your issue.
Your router occasionally gives out the ip of your pihole to someone else, and everything shuts the bed.
Try picking x.x.x.254 as the pihole address or x.x.x.2
Often routers won’t use either the top end or low end of the available addresses.
The machines on your network that are dhcp, do they go below 100? Do they go above 200?
You’re going to be guessing a little here.
What is your “net mask”
Ya I’m pretty sure you’re correct here and this is my issue. Since I’m not able to log into my router and define my dhcp range, I’ve picked an IP near the end of the range (254).
All my other devices are assigned .23, .25, etc.
Fun learning experience haha
Your ip-mask will tell you what IPs are accessible on the network
Likely goes nowhere because it’s probably 255.255.255.0 but it’s possible to be something else.
Ya it’s the 255 one. Thanks to all the help on the thread I’ve managed to set my server IP outside of the DHCP range (I think) so in theory my issue should be fixed. I’ll know in 90 days when the IP addresses are renewed.
Are you on the same subnet as your router or are you on the subnet that your custom dhcp server is handing out? If your router is 192.168.1.1 and your ip is on the 192.168.2.x range, they aren't going to be able to communicate.
Ya I’m on the same subnet
Are you using https?
Nah http://. Tried both but none worked. Probably going to need to factory reset my router to ensure there aren’t any unlisted networks that may be the admin one. I have a sneaking suspicion my current network setup is actually on a secondary network (which could be why I can’t log into it)
That sucks, it’s be good if you could disable DHCP overall and do it on the PiHole.
Hm interesting. Basically my server is a windows computer (ya windows is not a good server OS I know, was lazy and experimenting) and in the windows network settings I assigned it a static IP that was within my DHCP range.
I wasn’t aware you could set it outside the range but this makes sense that it should be outside of the range so that my router doesn’t give my servers IP address to something else.
As you can tell I’m not super knowledgeable about networking but your help is making things make more sense. I appreciate it!
Haha yeah a big strong network person would be running proxmox or Ubuntu server or Debian or something and having a better time. I’m my defense, I’m both lazy and stupid so while (almost) everything is working, I’m keeping windows
Nothing wrong with a Windows box as your server. Use what you know. Windows skills are a great asset in the world.
This issue is OS-independent, meaning you would have the same problem on a Raspberry Pi as you did on your Windows box.
GLHF
It's definitely more difficult when you don't have control over the DHCP server. Is it part of a router provided by your ISP?
Yeah the router is provided by the ISP and it has very limited options on it but it is running the DHCP server.
That definitely sounds like you've found the issue, hopefully changing the IP solves it!