O2 Joggler Forum

Taken from the PnP III thread:

pukington wrote:Hello fellow Joggler users! Long time no see. I... i also use as a PiHole DNS ad-blocker, what a great thing it is too, network wide advert blocking...

Well thanks a lot!

I've spent the morning setting up a Joggler I retired yesterday (due to last week's purchase of an Amazon Echo Dot) as a XUbuntu machine running PiHole and also to act as the DHCP server on my network so that I can get around the BT Home Hub 5 unchangeable DNS server thing and use Norton's Connect Safe DNS servers. With this set up I can now run Norton's family-freindly DNS servers on every device without configuring them at device level and ad-block pretty comprehensively on PCs, android devices, and, from the kids' point of view, iPads/Pods/Phones.

Well chuffed with it now I think I've got it all working. Just another 20 or so static IP addresses to input in my custom /etc/dnsmasq.d/staticip.conf file so that all the devices are assigned IP addresses based on user, function and room (I then use the BT Home Hub 5 to blanket-block the kids' devices when they should be fast asleep).

Thanks as always to Buzz for the Xubuntu 14.04 build I'm using and to pukington for the inspiration to do this today!

"Once a Joggler, always a Joggler!"

Great work Dave
is this working with no display ? You could always sit it along side the Echo Dot and have it display the Alexa GUI , I'm experimenting with this at the mo on Android via the Alexa App with limited success maybe have a minimal desktop and booting to a browser with the Alexa GUI .


Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

Didn't realise there was an Alexa GUI!

I currently have the PiHole Joggler running with screen going off shortly after boot. It is sat on the 'network shelf' behind the TV which now comprises the BT Home Hub 5 router, ReadyNAS NAS, Zyxel NAS and now the XUbuntu Joggler.

I did get cross with it (PiHole, not Alexa - never with Alexa!) this morning as I was finishing assigning static IP addresses via my config file. I managed to break it and got a little frustrated for 10 minutes until I realised I'd duplicated an IP which caused everything to fail to connect to the Internet. Otherwise it's running seamlessly (for now).

Sounds great , might give it a try , have to look in to it Love Alexa too Dave , Plex has just got intergration I believe as well .
I've created another thread to explore Echo GUI

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

Setting up Pi-Hole on a Joggler

https://pi-hole.net/

Very quick guide for how I did it:

1. Installed Buzz's latest XUbuntu (ext version) from http://jwills.co.uk/projects/joggler-xubuntu/download/.
2. Installed it on a trusted SanDisk Cruzer Fit Mini 4Gb USB stick via Windows 7 64 Bit using Win32DiskImager 0.9.5
3. Booted Joggler from USB and set static IP via the option in the networking menu (used USB keyboard and mouse).
4. Rebooted Joggler without keyboard and mouse - latest XUbuntu has SSH installed by default so did rest of commands via Putty.
5. Logged into Joggler from Windows via Putty
6. Swithced to root sudo su
7. Installed Pi-Hole to Joggler via curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash and followed prompts
8. Went to BT Home Hub 5 advanced settings and turned off DHCP server
9. In pi-Hole web interface (IP address/admin) turned on the built in DHCP server via settings
10. Set up /etc/dnsmasq.d/staticip.conf file with lines in the format dhcp-host=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx,y.y.y.y,chosennameofdevice Then cleared incorrectly assigned IP addresses in /etc/pihole/dhcp.leases I was nano-ing the .conf file to start with, but once I remembered how to use WinSCP as root, I used that instead.
11. Added my chosen custom DNS servers (Norton Connect Safe compelte blocking). I did have to turn off all BT Family Safety settings in MyBT account. Others are built in e.g. Google, OpenDNS etc.
12. Rebooted Pi-Hole Joggler via web interface.
13. For some reason I had to restart DNS servers via Pi-hole web interface to make the internet work. I think it was because I changed the staticip.conf file. It seems to like the DNS servers to be restarted manually after doing this. It has worked fine on subsequent test reboots of the Joggler. I have a thread on the pihole help board about this which I will re-open if it does this again (there is a built in error reporting/logging uploading system in pi-hole).

I love it because:

• It utilised the spare Joggler I had following the purchase of the Amazon Echo Dot!
  All devices on the network are adblocked/easily filtered including Apple devices. It either blocks adds completely or leaves a space where they were (unless a device is running its own adblocker (e.g. ublock origin on Chrome browser) in which case the frame is removed completely.
  It gives me my own choice of DNS servers rather than having to stick with BTs own. I did have to turn off all BT Family Safety settings in MyBT account.
  All my devices are assigned the correct IPs that I want.
  Devices seem to connect to the network a fraction quicker with their static IPs using pi-holes DHCP server rather than the BT Home Hub one.
  When I flip back to Sky (probably) for Internet in a month or two I won't need to faff around with loads of router settings for IP addresses. I'll just need to set the router's IP address, turn off DHCP server and I'm good to go.
  Its logging is very easy to look at and so I can see when the kids have had a sneaky go on their devices by looking at the IP log.

Potential problems:

• I've been led to believe that Mobdro won't work on tablets connected to the network. I don't use it though so it doesn't bother me.
  If Joggler hangs it'll need rebooting to make the internet work. I have put a switch in the cable to make this easier than trying ot reach plug/pull the wire.
  I really must make a backup of the XUbuntu usb stick today!