Local DNS with PiHole

I use PiHole in my local network for two different reasons:

• Ad-Blocking for my network
• as a local DNS server to make the services on my home-server available by URL

This page describes my DNS setup and wiring on a very high level!

Key components for my local DNS setup

PiHole

• Handles DNS resolving of http://localservice.home as a CNAME-record to the DNS record of my home-server.
• The DNS listener :53 is made availabe as virtual host in my network, using Docker MacVLAN

Traefik

• Handles the routing for an HTTP request URL to a Docker Service
• Exposes the PiHole Admin GUI via HTTP.
• Is the only Docker Container on my host with port binding :80:80

Schematic Setup of PiHole and Traefik for DNS and Routing:

How does it work?

• A client wants to access a service on the Home-Server.
• He types the url http://service.home into the address bar of his browser
• The browser sends a DNS request to PiHole as primary DNS in my network
• PiHole translates the address to the IP of the Home-Server
• Traefik listens on HTTP port :80 for all HTTP requests
• Traefik translates the request URL to a Docker Service and routes the request and response accordingly.

Schematic sequence of an http request in my network:

Noteworthy Aspects

• For each new service, I need to configure a CNAME entry in PiHole
• I need to add labels to each docker-compose.yml that configure the routing in Traefik
• All services that need to be available from external, need to be on the same Docker Network as Traefik