Pi-hole monitoring with Netdata

Pi-hole is a Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application which acts as a DNS sinkhole, intended for use on a private network.

This module will monitor one or more Pi-hole instances using PHP API.

The API exposed data time frame is for the last 24 hr. All collected values are for that time time frame, not for the module collection interval.

Charts

It produces the following set of charts:

• DNS Queries Total (Cached, Blocked and Forwarded) in queries
• DNS Queries in queries
• DNS Queries Percentage in percentage
• Unique Clients in clients
• Domains On Blocklist in domains
• Blocklist Last Update in seconds
• Unwanted Domains Blocking Status in boolean

If the web password is set and valid following charts will be added:

• DNS Queries Per Type in percentage
• DNS Queries Per Destination in percentage
• Top Clients in requests
• Top Permitted Domains in hits
• Top Blocked Domains in hits

Configuration

Edit the go.d/pihole.conf configuration file using edit-config from the Netdata config directory, which is typically at /etc/netdata.

cd /etc/netdata # Replace this path with your Netdata config directory
sudo ./edit-config go.d/pihole.conf

Module automatically detects Pihole web password reading setupVars.conf file. It expects to find the file in the /etc/pihole/ directory.

If you want to monitor remote instance you need to set the password in the module configuration file.

Here is an example for local and remote instances:

jobs:
  - name: local
    top_clients_entries: 10
    top_items_entries: 10  # top permitted and top blocked domains charts

  - name: remote
    url: http://203.0.113.10
    password: 1ebd33f882f9aa5fac26a7cb74704742f91100228eb322e41b7bd6e6aeb8f74b

  - name: remote_https
    url: https://203.0.113.11
    password: 1ebd33f882f9aa5fac26a7cb74704742f91100228eb322e41b7bd6e6aeb8f74b
    tls_skip_verify: yes  # self signed certificate verification skip

For all available options please see module configuration file.

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot issues with the pihole collector, run the go.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output should give you clues as to why the collector isn't working.

First, navigate to your plugins directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the setting plugins directory. Once you're in the plugin's directory, switch to the netdata user.

cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/
sudo -u netdata -s

You can now run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

./go.d.plugin -d -m pihole