Hello, now that the Media Center is up and running smoothly, I wanted to move on to Pi-Hole but having trouble getting it to install. Like before, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
21 replies
tomspark wrote:
Means a lot — welcome to Legend. You've got the full toolkit now (Tom AI, the upgraded dashboard, the extra modules), so have a poke around Settings once your key's in. And seriously, shout anytime you get stuck — glad to help you get the rest dialed in.
tomspark wrote:
Perfect — 'Fixed Allocation' is exactly what you want. Your NAS is locked to 192.168.1.101 for good now, so Pi-hole won't drift on you. You're fully set up: Pi-hole's running, the address is pinned, and you just switch each device's DNS to 192.168.1.101 whenever you want it covered. Nicely done working through all that — enjoy the ad-free browsing, and shout anytime.
tomspark wrote:
Happy to help again. Pi-hole is the one app that trips people up most, because it needs a specific network port for blocking ads, and sometimes another program on your box is already using it — SparkBox usually clears that for you, but not always. To point you at the exact fix, tell me what you're actually seeing: does the Pi-hole tile go red on the dashboard, or do you get an error message when you turn it on? Paste me whatever it says. And if you're comfortable in the terminal, running sparkbox doctor prints what's wrong in plain English — that output would nail it down fast.
kaufman51 wrote:
The Pi-hole title is red on the dashboard and when I click resume a message pops up saying "Failed to open container" I also went into Docker in the NAS to enable it there, here is that log message: Failed to start container sb-pihole. Error: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint sb-pihole (be21dbaadac126756612a25a77d8e37ffec6700710d7c7992213b631ba788a1d): Error starting userland proxy: listen tcp4 0.0.0.0:53: bind: address already in use
tomspark wrote:
Thanks, that error tells me exactly what's going on — and you didn't break anything. Pi-hole needs port 53 (the one computers use to look up websites), but something already running on your NAS is sitting on that port, so Pi-hole can't start. The 'address already in use' line is the giveaway. To free it up I just need to know what's holding the port. Run this one command and paste me what it prints: sudo ss -tulpn | grep ':53' — it'll name the program that's using port 53, and once I see that I'll give you the exact step to clear it for Pi-hole.
kaufman51 wrote:
udp UNCONN 0 0 0.0.0.0:5353 0.0.0.0: users:(("avahi-daemon",pid=1913497,fd=12)) udp UNCONN 0 0 127.0.0.1:53 0.0.0.0: users:(("dnsmasq",pid=2240,fd=4)) udp UNCONN 0 0 [::]:5353 [::]: users:(("avahi-daemon",pid=1913497,fd=13)) udp UNCONN 0 0 [::1]:53 [::]: users:(("dnsmasq",pid=2240,fd=6)) tcp LISTEN 0 32 127.0.0.1:53 0.0.0.0: users:(("dnsmasq",pid=2240,fd=5)) tcp LISTEN 0 32 [::1]:53 [::]: users:(("dnsmasq",pid=2240,fd=7))
tomspark wrote:
Perfect, that's the answer. The thing sitting on port 53 is a small DNS helper your NAS runs called dnsmasq — and since that's part of the NAS itself, we don't want to just switch it off. The clean fix is to tell Pi-hole to use your NAS's own address instead of trying to grab the port for everything. Open your SparkBox settings file (it's named .env in your SparkBox install folder — run sparkbox doctor and it prints the exact path), add this line at the bottom: PIHOLEDNSBIND=172.29.76.129: That's your NAS's address with a colon on the end — the same address you used for the apps earlier. Save it, then run: sudo sparkbox up pihole Pi-hole will start up on your NAS's address and leave the NAS's own DNS untouched. Tell me if it comes up green.
kaufman51 wrote:
So I ran sparkbox doctor: [OK] Settings file (.env): /opt/sparkbox/.env My questions is how to get to this
tomspark wrote:
Easy — that's the right file, and you don't need to open it in an editor. You can add the setting with one command. Copy and paste this exactly (it tacks the line onto the bottom of that file): echo "PIHOLEDNSBIND=172.29.76.129:" | sudo tee -a /opt/sparkbox/.env Then start Pi-hole with: sudo sparkbox up pihole That's the whole thing — the first line adds your NAS's address, the second brings Pi-hole up on it. Give it a minute, then check the dashboard: the Pi-hole tile should turn green. Let me know how it looks.
kaufman51 wrote:
Bingo@NassyBoy:~$ echo "PIHOLEDNSBIND=172.29.76.129:" | sudo tee -a /opt/sparkbox/.env PIHOLEDNSBIND=172.29.76.129: Bingo@NassyBoy:~$ sudo sparkbox up pihole / | | | | ) \ \| ' \ / | '| |/ / \ / \ \/ / ) | |) | (| | | | <| |) | () < |/| ./ \,|| ||\\/ \//\\ || SparkBox v1.6.315 - Self-Hosted Privacy Stack Created by Tom Spark | youtube.com/@TomSparkReviews Environment: NAS (generic) [INFO] Starting SparkBox... [INFO] Targeted up: pihole [INFO] .env changed since last up — recreating containers to pick up new values [+] Running 1/1 ✔ Container sb-pihole Recreated 1.6s Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint sb-pihole (014e8a4fd316fc82a159ffb26bb7ad6e6e5f807c855beace8600406aabd5d8e8): Error starting userland proxy: listen tcp4 172.29.76.129:53: bind: cannot assign requested address
tomspark wrote:
So close — the setting worked, Pi-hole just tried to use an address the NAS doesn't see as its own. That 172.29.76.129 is how you reach the NAS from your computer, but it's not the address the NAS sees on itself, which is why it couldn't grab it (that's what 'cannot assign requested address' means). I need the NAS's own local address. Run this one command on the NAS and paste me what it shows: hostname -I It'll list one or more addresses (often something like 192.168.x.x). Send those over and I'll give you the corrected line to drop in.
kaufman51 wrote:
192.168.1.101 172.17.0.1 172.20.0.1 172.20.4.1 172.20.5.1 2600:1700:4be0:d670:93e3:9482:bf78:fd3 2600:1700:4be0:d670::48
tomspark wrote:
There it is — 192.168.1.101 is your NAS's real address on your home network (the 172.x ones are Docker's internal plumbing, ignore those). Let's point the setting at it. This one command fixes the line you added earlier, no duplicate: sudo sed -i 's|^PIHOLEDNSBIND=.|PIHOLEDNSBIND=192.168.1.101:|' /opt/sparkbox/.env Then bring Pi-hole up again: sudo sparkbox up pihole This time it should start clean and the tile should go green. One heads-up for later: to actually use Pi-hole for ad-blocking, point your devices' DNS at 192.168.1.101. Tell me how it looks.
kaufman51 wrote:
That's the ticket, pihole is now green. You'll have to tell me more about "point your devices' DNS at 192.168.1.101" but in the mean time, what's the best way to support, upgrade to Legend? You're a boss.
tomspark wrote:
Boom — love to see it green. For pointing devices at Pi-hole: the cleanest way is in your router. Log into your router's settings, find the DNS option (usually under DHCP or LAN), and set the network's DNS to 192.168.1.101 — then every device on your wifi uses Pi-hole automatically, no per-device work. The menu name varies by router brand, so if you tell me yours I'll point you closer. You can also set just one device's DNS to 192.168.1.101 first to test it. And thank you, genuinely — Legend is a one-time $49, right here: https://tomsparkbox.com/backer. You'll get a license key by email after; drop it into your dashboard under Settings and the Legend features unlock. Appreciate you.
kaufman51 wrote:
Happy to support.
kaufman51 wrote:
-I use AT&T and this is what I am looking at.
tomspark wrote:
Ah, AT&T — you picked the one gateway that makes this annoying. AT&T's router is one of the few that won't let you set a DNS for the whole network (notice there's no DNS box on that page — they lock it). So the one-and-done router method isn't available to you here. The workaround is per-device: on each phone or computer, open its wifi settings, find the DNS option, switch it from automatic to manual, and enter 192.168.1.101. Every device you set that way starts using Pi-hole. One heads-up: your NAS's address (192.168.1.101) came from the router's auto-assign pool, so it could change later and quietly break Pi-hole. In the AT&T gateway's device list, set the NAS to a fixed/reserved address so it stays put. Want me to walk through that part?
kaufman51 wrote:
Yes please
tomspark wrote:
Sure thing. On the AT&T gateway, open a browser and go to http://192.168.1.254 (that's your gateway, from the screenshot). Then click the 'Home Network' tab and look for 'IP Allocation' (the device list). You'll see every device on your network — find your NAS in there, it'll be the one at 192.168.1.101. Next to it there's an address dropdown; switch it from the automatic option to a fixed/reserved one set to 192.168.1.101, and save. That locks the address so your NAS always keeps 192.168.1.101 and Pi-hole won't break later. If the menu labels look different on your model, screenshot the Home Network tabs and I'll point you to the exact spot.
kaufman51 wrote:
Looks like its Fixed.