Objective:

The ability to configure your mobile/roaming device to route all your internet traffic through your home connection whilst utilising your LAN based Pi-Hole blocking DNS service.

 Required:

• 1 x Raspberry Pi (with ethernet connection, monitor, USB keyboard/mouse)
• 8GB+ SD Card
• Windows PC with SD card reader
• your own internet connected network
• time to kill

Resources used:

• Latest OS Image:
  https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
• Latest Pi-Hole Software:
  https://pi-hole.net/
• Latest PiVPN Installer:
  http://www.pivpn.io/
• Latest SD Card Image Writer:
  https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/
• Pi Password Setup:
  https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/usage/users.md
• Pi-Hole Admin Console Password Change:
  https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/how-do-i-set-or-reset-the-web-interface-password/1328
• SSH/SCP Client:
  https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client-download
• OpenVPN IOS Client:
  https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/openvpn-connect/id590379981?mt=8
• OpenVPN Android Client:
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.openvpn.openvpn&hl=en_GB
• Port Forward Guide For Routers:
  https://portforward.com/router.htm

Basic Steps Involved:

1. Download Raspbian Jessie system image
2. Install win32diskimager software & write the image to the SD card drive
3. Boot the Pi with your new SD card image
4. Open linux terminal session
5. Change your default pi login password
6. Run the Pi-Hole installer – curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
7. Work through the Pi-Hole wizard, leave defaults but set a Static IP
8. Open a new linux terminal session
9. Run the ‘pihole -a -p newpass’ command to update your admin password after setup
10. Run the PiVPN installer – curl -L https://install.pivpn.io | bash
11. Work through PiVPN wizard, leave defaults and choose any upstream provider
12. Port forward with your router to transmit OpenVPN traffic directly to your Pi
13. Run the’ PiVPN -a’ command to create a vpn client config file with .ovpn extension
14. Copy that file to your PC using Bitvise SSH client SCP transfer
15. Upload the file to a cloud provider of your choice
16. Install an OpenVPN client app for your device
17. Import the profile into OpenVPN by exporting the .ovpn file from the cloud file store

The Magic Bullet Solution:

The real trick is specified below to get external clients be able to use your internal DNS with full Pi-Hole blocking:

1. Edit the file  “/etc/openvpn/server.conf” on your Pi using nano (text editor). Find the line similar to this “push dhcp-option DNS 8.8.8.8”, change it the VPN address of your Pi, by default it should be 10.8.0.1.
2. Edit the file “/etc/dnsmasq.conf” file to allow DNS resolution from the VPN interface. Find the line similar to this “listen-address=” Remove the comment ‘#’ and put in 127.0.0.1, ‘the local network IP of your Pi’, 10.8.0.1 (or your relevant Pi’s VPN address)

Now when you need to use your DNS/ad-blocking services outside your home, you can connect up your mobile device to your network via OpenVPN and you will have your full Pi-Hole blocking services available to you.