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pihole-cloudsync

A script to help synchronize Pi-hole blocklist, blacklist, whitelist, regex (and optionally /etc/hosts files) across multiple Pi-holes using a Git repository.

Why pihole-cloudsync?

I was running six Pi-holes on three different networks at three different physical locations. I wanted all six Pi-holes to share the same blocklists, blacklists, whitelists, and regex files, but it was time-consuming to manually synchronize all of them (modify the local Pi-holes, VPN into the second network and modify those, then VPN into the third network and modify those). I also wanted the ability to share a common section of /etc/hosts between multiple Pi-holes so that the Pi-hole UI stats display the proper local hostnames instead of IP addresses.

I wanted to use Pi-hole's built-in web UI to manage only one set of lists on one Pi-hole -- and then securely synchronize an unlimited number of additional Pi-holes. I couldn't find an existing script that did exactly what I wanted... so I wrote pihole-cloudsync.

pihole-cloudsync is lightweight enough to use if you're only syncing 2 Pi-holes on a home network, but powerful enough to synchronize virtually unlimited Pi-holes on an unlimited number of networks.

Feedback, suggestions, bug fixes, and code contributions are welcome.

How pihole-cloudsync Works

pihole-cloudsync allows you to designate any Pi-hole on any network to act as your "Master" or "Primary." This is the only Pi-hole whose list settings you will need to manage using Pi-hole's built-in web UI. The Primary Pi-hole then uses pihole-cloudsync in Push mode to upload its blocklist, blacklist, whitelist, and regex files to a private Git repository that you control (such as GitHub).

All other Secondary Pi-holes that you wish to keep synchronized use pihole-cloudsync in Pull mode to download your Primary Pi-hole's blocklist, blacklist, whitelist, and regex files from your private Git repository.

If you enable the optional Shared Hosts mode (more details on that below), pihole-cloudsync will also scan for a specially marked section of your Primary Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file and push it to your private Git repository. Your Secondary Pi-holes can then pull the shared hosts data from the repo and insert it into their existing /etc/hosts files.

The script is designed to work with any Git repo that your Pi-holes can access, but I have only personally tested it with GitHub.

Setup

Prior to running pihole-cloudsync, you must first create a new dedicated Git respository to store your lists, then clone that new repository to all Pi-holes (both Primary and Secondary) that you wish to keep in sync. The easiest way to do that is to fork my own my-pihole-lists GitHub repository. Don't worry if my personal lists in that repo are different than yours. You'll overwrite your forked version of the repo with your own Pi-hole lists the first time you run pihole-cloudsync in Push mode.

On GitHub

  1. Sign into GitHub.
  2. Go to https://github.com/stevejenkins/my-pihole-lists.
  3. Press Fork.
  4. Optional: If you wish to make your forked version of the repo private, press Settings, scroll down to the Danger Zone, then press Make private.
  5. On your new repo's main page, press the Clone or download button and copy the Clone with HTTPS link to your clipboard.

On your Primary Pi-hole device

  1. Install Git (on Raspbian/Debian do sudo apt-get install git).
  2. Do cd /usr/local/bin.
  3. Install pihole-cloudsync with sudo git clone https://github.com/stevejenkins/pihole-cloudsync.git.
  4. Create your private local Git repo with sudo git clone https://github.com/<yourusername>/my-pihole-lists.git (paste the URL you copied from GitHub).
  5. If you're using a repo name other than my-pihole-lists, edit /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync and edit the personal_git_dir variable to match your local Git repo location.
  6. If you want to enable Shared Hosts mode, edit /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync and change the enable_hosts option to on (you could also use 1, y, yes, or true in upper or lower case). Refer to the Shared Hosts Mode section below to add two required comment lines to your local Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file before proceeding to the next step and running pihole-cloudsync for the first time.
  7. Run /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync --initpush to initialize the local Pi-hole in "Push" mode. It will grab your Primary Pi-hole's list files from /etc/pihole (as well as the designated portion of your /etc/hosts file if Shared Hosts Mode is enabled) and add them to your new local Git repo. The --initpush mode should only need to be run once on your Primary Pi-hole.
  8. Run /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync --push to push/upload your Primary Pi-hole's lists from your local Git repo to your remote Git repo. You will have to manually enter your GitHub email address and password the first time you do this, but read below for how to save your login credentials so you can run this script unattended.

On all Secondary Pi-hole devices

  1. Install Git (on Raspbian/Debian do sudo apt-get install git)
  2. Do cd /usr/local/bin
  3. Install pihole-cloudsync with sudo git clone https://github.com/stevejenkins/pihole-cloudsync.git
  4. Create your private local Git repo with sudo git clone https://github.com/<yourusername>/my-pihole-lists.git (paste the URL you copied from GitHub)
  5. If you're using a repo name other than my-pihole-lists, edit /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync and edit the personal_git_dir variable to match your local Git repo location.
  6. If you want to enable Shared Hosts mode, edit /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync and change the enable_hosts option to on (you could also use 1, y, yes, or true in upper or lower case). Make sure you've added the necessary comments to your Primary Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file (explained in the Shared Hosts Mode section of this README) before proceeding to the next step and running pihole-cloudsync for the first time.
  7. Run /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync --initpull to initialize the local Pi-hole in Pull/Download mode. You will have to manually enter your GitHub email address and password the first time you do this, but read below for how to save your login credentials so you can run this script unattended. The --initpull option will also perform your first pull automatically and only needs to be run once on each Secondary Pi-hole. All future pulls can be performed with /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync --pull.
  8. Running pihole-cloudsync --pull will pull/download your Primary Pi-hole's lists from your remote Git repo to your Secondary Pi-hole's local Git repo. The --pull option will automatically copy the downloaded file(s) to your Pi-hole directory and tell Pi-hole to do a pihole -g command to update its lists.

Shared Hosts Mode

Because the local hostname information is unique to each Pi-hole, it's impractical to simply clone the Primary Pi-hole's entire /etc/hosts file to all Secondary Pi-holes. However, pihole-cloudsync allows you to designate a portion of your Primary Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file that can be inserted into each Secondary Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file by enabdling Shared Hosts mode on your Primary and Secondary Pi-holes.

Here's an example /etc/hosts file on a Primary Pi-hole:

127.0.0.1	localhost
::1		localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1		ip6-allnodes
ff02::2		ip6-allrouters
127.0.1.1	Pi-hole

192.168.1.1     gateway.local
192.168.1.105   pihole1.local
192.168.1.106   pihole2.local
192.168.1.117   desktop1.local
192.168.1.118   laptop1.local
192.168.1.200   iot1.local
fe80::e123:74ed:b5e:34a2        pihole1.local
fe80::f123:73d6:fe15:f5dd       pihole2.local

To allow pihole-cloudsync to know which hosts you want to sync to your Secondary Pi-holes, enclose the shared host information in your Primary Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file between the following exact comments:

# SHARED HOSTS - START
(shared host entries go here)
# SHARED HOSTS - END

So your Primary Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file should look something like this:

127.0.0.1	localhost
::1		localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1		ip6-allnodes
ff02::2		ip6-allrouters
127.0.1.1	Pi-hole

# SHARED HOSTS - START
192.168.1.1     gateway.local
192.168.1.105   pihole1.local
192.168.1.106   pihole2.local
192.168.1.117   desktop1.local
192.168.1.118   laptop1.local
192.168.1.200   iot1.local
fe80::e123:74ed:b5e:34a2        pihole1.local
fe80::f123:73d6:fe15:f5dd       pihole2.local
# SHARED HOSTS - END

On all Secondary Pi-holes, simply insert the START and END comments at the bottom of their /etc/hosts files like this:

127.0.0.1	localhost
::1		localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1		ip6-allnodes
ff02::2		ip6-allrouters
127.0.1.1	Pi-hole2

# SHARED HOSTS - START
# SHARED HOSTS - END

When pihole-cloudsync runs in Pull mode with the Shared Hosts mode enabled, it will insert the shared hosts between those comments.

IMPORTANT: You must enter the comments exactly as shown, since pihole-cloudsync searches for those exact comments in order to syncronize properly.

Enable Shared Hosts mode by editing /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync. Change the enable_hosts option to on (you could also use 1, y, yes, or true in upper or lower case). Make sure you've added the necessary comments to your Primary Pi-hole's /etc/hosts file running pihole-cloudsync in Shared Hosts mode.

If you decide to enable Shared Hosts mode after you've already been running pihole-cloudsync for a while, simply re-run in --initpush or --initpull mode (depending on whether you are configuring a Primary or Secondary Pi-hole) after setting enable_hosts to on in /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync.

Alternative Configuration: All Secondary (no Primary) Pi-holes

Once you've successfully pushed your Primary Pi-hole's lists to your remote Git repo, you could optionally choose to edit/manage your whitelist, blacklists, and regex files directly on your Git repo using your cloud-based Git provider's built-in editing tools. If you go this route, you'll need to re-configure what was previously your Primary Pi-hole to run in Pull mode (which will turn it into a Secondary). Do:

/usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync --initpull

That will re-initialize the local Pi-hole in Pull/Download mode. If you had previously automated your Primary Pi-hole's periodic pushes, be sure to edit your crontab so that pihole-cloudsync runs in Pull mode instead of Push mode.

Running pihole-cloudsync Unattended

The following steps must be performed on each Pi-hole you wish to use with pihole-cloudsync.

In order to automate or run pihole-cloudsync unattended, you will need to either store your GitHub login credentials locally or create an SSH key for your Pi-hole's root user and upload the public key to GitHub. You will need to do this on the Primary Pi-hole as well as all Secondary Pi-holes.

The SSH key approach is for more advanced users who don't need me to explain how to do it. To store your Git credentials locally, do the following on each Pi-hole:

cd /usr/local/bin/my-pihole-lists

sudo git config --global credential.helper store

The next time you pull from or push to the remote repository, you'll be prompted for your username and password. But you won't have to re-enter them after that. So do a simple:

sudo git pull

to enter and save your credentials. Now you can run pihole-cloudsync unattended on this Pi-hole device.

Again, the above steps must be performed on each Pi-hole you wish to use with pihole-cloudsync.

Automating with cron

Once each Pi-hole's local Git repo has been configured to save your login credentials, you can automate your Primary Pi-hole's "push" and your Secondary Pi-holes' "pull" in any number of ways. The simplest way is to run a simple cron job a few times a day.

Once you can successfully run pihole-cloudsync --push from the command line on your Primary Pi-hole, do crontab -e (or sudo crontab -e if you're not logged in as the root user) and create a cron entry such as:

00 01,07,13,19 * * * sudo /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync --push > /dev/null 2>&1 #Push Master Pi-hole Lists to remote Git repo

And once you can successfully run pihole-cloudsync --pull from the command line on each of your Secondary Pi-holes, do sudo crontab -e and create a cron entry that runs 5 minutes after your Primary pushes any changes, such as:

05 01,07,13,19 * * * sudo /usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync/pihole-cloudsync --pull > /dev/null 2>&1 #Pull Master Pi-hole Lists from remote Git repo

NOTE: On Raspian, the script won't execute via cron without the sudo command (as shown above). If you're having trouble getting the script to run unattended on Raspian, try including sudo in the cron command.

Automating with systemd

pihole-cloudsync pulls can be automated fairly easily with systemd, given your distro runs it. Once you can successfully run pihole-cloudsync --push from the command line on your primary Pi-Hole, you may proceed with systemd setup. There are three files you must install in order to ensure a stable and non-intrusve update process: The .service, the .timer, and the .slice.

Quick Start

  1. Copy the each of the three unit files in the "Details" section below into /etc/systemd/system on your machine
  2. Tell systemd we changed its configuration files: systemctl daemon-reload
  3. Enable and start the service/timer
# Enable the relevant configs
systemctl enable pihole-cloudsync-update.service
systemctl enable pihole-cloudsync-update.timer

# Start the timer
systemctl start pihole-cloudsync-update.timer

Details

  1. .service - /etc/systemd/system/pihole-cloudsync-update.service - The core service file. Configured as a 'oneshot' in order to be run via a systemd timer
[Unit]
Description=PiHole Cloud Sync Data Puller service
Wants=pihole-cloudsync-update.timer

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/pihole-cloudsync --pull
Slice=pihole-cloudsync-update.slice

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
  1. .timer - /etc/systemd/system/pihole-cloudsync-update.timer - The timer file. Determines when the .service file is executed. Systemd timers are highly flexible and can be executed under a variety of timed and trigger-based circumstances. The ArchLinux systemd/Timer documentation is some of the best around. See their examples for many mnore ways to configure this systemd timer unit
[Unit]
Description=PiHole Cloud Synd Data Puller timer
Requires=pihole-cloudsync-update.service

[Timer]
Unit=pihole-cloudsync-update.service
OnBootSec=15
OnUnitActiveSec=1h

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target
  1. .slice - /etc/systemd/system/pihole-cloudsync-update.slice - The slice file. Determines how much of the total system resources this service is allowed to consume. Since PiHole is a DNS server and we humans like the internet to be as snappy as possible, this slice is put in to keep the update process in check and ensure that there will always be plenty of room for the PiHole sevice to operate and answer queries without being obstructed by pihole-cloudsync updates. If you'd like to know more about systemd slices, check out this wiki page for details
[Unit]
Description=PiHole Cloud Sync Puller resource limiter slice
Before=slices.target

[Slice]
CPUQuota=50%

Disclaimer

You are totally responsible for anything this script does to your system. Whether it launches a nice game of Tic Tac Toe or global thermonuclear war, you're on your own. :)