Question Utilise Pi-hole remotely....help.

[Mike12421]

Hello all,

I have Pi-hole running great in a docker on my DS916+. Devices at home are successfully using the service and it runs flawlessly, I wish I had realised what I was missing out on sooner.

I would like to utilise the benefits of Pi-hole on my Android phone (Note 10+) whilst I'm away from the house. Looking online, there seems to be several different suggestions on how to route my DNS traffic to my NAS, with one being; ZeroTier

On one last point, I like the idea of protecting/anonymizing my online presence as much as possible, especially on my mobile when away from the house. As such, if its maybe possible to setup a VPN tunnel from my phone, to my NAS, in turn allowing me to use Pi-hole and a VPN, then access the Internet from my NAS, that would be ideal. For reference, I have, NordVPN and so I can utilise their server certificates if necessary.

Before pressing ahead with any route, I wanted to see what was recommended here.

For info, the only thing I have running via vpn on my Synology is SabnzbdVPN in a docker, this allows me to still access the NAS remotely. This functionality is required.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Telos]

You can do that via Synology VPN Server/DDNS (with port forwarding) or via Reverse Proxy with an existing open port.

 

[Rusty]

Hello all,

I have Pi-hole running great in a docker on my DS916+. Devices at home are successfully using the service and it runs flawlessly, I wish I had realised what I was missing out on sooner.

I would like to utilise the benefits of Pi-hole on my Android phone (Note 10+) whilst I'm away from the house. Looking online, there seems to be several different suggestions on how to route my DNS traffic to my NAS, with one being; ZeroTier

On one last point, I like the idea of protecting/anonymizing my online presence as much as possible, especially on my mobile when away from the house. As such, if its maybe possible to setup a VPN tunnel from my phone, to my NAS, in turn allowing me to use Pi-hole and a VPN, then access the Internet from my NAS, that would be ideal. For reference, I have, NordVPN and so I can utilise their server certificates if necessary.

Before pressing ahead with any route, I wanted to see what was recommended here.

For info, the only thing I have running via vpn on my Synology is SabnzbdVPN in a docker, this allows me to still access the NAS remotely. This functionality is required.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Well have you tried to setup a vpn on your nas to call home?

 

[Mike12421]

Well have you tried to setup a vpn on your nas to call home?

Hello,

I have setup a VPN Server on my NAS and can successfully connect to it remotely via Openvpn, however I am having no luck being able to access/utilise NAS resources.

For example, Pi-Hole is not capturing Internet activity from my phone which is connected via VPN. I can connect to the DSM via my VPN IP; 10.8.0.1 however not to my Pi-Hole admin page.

Here are a couple of screen shots of my setup;

A bit of a shot in the dark, but could my issue have anything to do with the Network Interface that I'm using for the VPN connection?

 

[Rusty]

have you added vpn subnet to your firewall?

 

[Mike12421]

have you added vpn subnet to your firewall?

I've only edited the Synology Firewall settings as outlined below, however there was no option for "subnet".

As for my router, I've allowed the required portforwarding that the Synology VPN Server setup requested, but nothing further.

 

[Rusty]

What I ment was allow 10.8.0.0 range to be accessible in your dsm firewall

 

[Mike12421]

What I ment was allow 10.8.0.0 range to be accessible in your dsm firewall

When I set the OpenVPN rule in my DSM I chose to allow all "Souce IP" if that's what you are referring too. Unfortunately I can not locate any further "IP settings" within DSM firewall.

As fot my router, I can not locate any "IP settings" there either. I have forwarded just two ports, one for my NAS and one for OpenVPN.

Ona side note, I have also tried updating the openvpn.config file used on my phone with the line;
dhcp-option DNS 10.8.0.1

 

[Mike12421]

Furthermore, when turning off the "DNS fallback" option in the openvpn app on my phone, no websites can be loaded. So looks like it's my DNS configuration maybe?

***EDIT***
Looks like it was the DNS details were not reaching the phone. Uninstalled "OpenVPN Connect" and instead installed "OpenVPN Android" and it worked immediately.

Thanks for everyone's assistance.

One last question however, as my NAS now has a secure vpn tunnel with my phone via openvpn, does the VPN coverage stop at the NAS for that client (ie my phone) when browsing the Internet, or does the coverage continue? What I mean is, does the VPN coverage stop once I have connected to my NAS and then any browsing of the Internet on my phone via the NAS's Internet connection is exposed?

I tried to re-enable my NAS's vpn connection instead of an unprotected connection, however it tells me to disconnect my VPN server first.