Pi-hole

Plugin: go.d.plugin Module: pihole

Overview

This collector monitors Pi-hole instances using PHP API.

The data provided by the API is for the last 24 hours. All collected values refer to this time period and not to the module's collection interval.

This collector is supported on all platforms.

This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

This integration doesn't support auto-detection.

Limits

The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.

Performance Impact

The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.

Metrics

Metrics grouped by scope.

The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.

Per Pi-hole instance

These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
pihole.dns_queries_total	queries	queries
pihole.dns_queries	cached, blocked, forwarded	queries
pihole.dns_queries_percentage	cached, blocked, forwarded	percentage
pihole.unique_clients	unique	clients
pihole.domains_on_blocklist	blocklist	domains
pihole.blocklist_last_update	ago	seconds
pihole.unwanted_domains_blocking_status	enabled, disabled	status
pihole.dns_queries_types	a, aaaa, any, ptr, soa, srv, txt	percentage
pihole.dns_queries_forwarded_destination	cached, blocked, other	percentage

Alerts

The following alerts are available:

Alert name	On metric	Description
pihole_blocklist_last_update	pihole.blocklist_last_update	gravity.list (blocklist) file last update time
pihole_status	pihole.unwanted_domains_blocking_status	unwanted domains blocking is disabled

Setup

Prerequisites

No action required.

Configuration

File

The configuration file name for this integration is go.d/pihole.conf.

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config go.d/pihole.conf

Options

The following options can be defined globally: update_every, autodetection_retry.

Config options

Name	Description	Default	Required
update_every	Data collection frequency.	5	no
autodetection_retry	Recheck interval in seconds. Zero means no recheck will be scheduled.	0	no
url	Server URL.	http://127.0.0.1	yes
setup_vars_path	Path to setupVars.conf. This file is used to get the web password.	/etc/pihole/setupVars.conf	no
timeout	HTTP request timeout.	5	no
username	Username for basic HTTP authentication.		no
password	Password for basic HTTP authentication.		no
proxy_url	Proxy URL.		no
proxy_username	Username for proxy basic HTTP authentication.		no
proxy_password	Password for proxy basic HTTP authentication.		no
method	HTTP request method.	GET	no
body	HTTP request body.		no
headers	HTTP request headers.		no
not_follow_redirects	Redirect handling policy. Controls whether the client follows redirects.	no	no
tls_skip_verify	Server certificate chain and hostname validation policy. Controls whether the client performs this check.	no	no
tls_ca	Certification authority that the client uses when verifying the server's certificates.		no
tls_cert	Client TLS certificate.		no
tls_key	Client TLS key.		no

Examples

Basic

A basic example configuration.

Config

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1

HTTPS with self-signed certificate

Remote instance with enabled HTTPS and self-signed certificate.

Config

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: https://203.0.113.11
    tls_skip_verify: yes
    password: 1ebd33f882f9aa5fac26a7cb74704742f91100228eb322e41b7bd6e6aeb8f74b

Multi-instance

Note: When you define multiple jobs, their names must be unique.

Collecting metrics from local and remote instances.

Config

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1

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

Troubleshooting

Debug Mode

Important: Debug mode is not supported for data collection jobs created via the UI using the Dyncfg feature.

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.

• Navigate to the plugins.d directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the plugins setting under [directories].

  cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/

• Switch to the netdata user.

  sudo -u netdata -s

• Run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

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

Getting Logs

If you're encountering problems with the pihole collector, follow these steps to retrieve logs and identify potential issues:

• Run the command specific to your system (systemd, non-systemd, or Docker container).
• Examine the output for any warnings or error messages that might indicate issues. These messages should provide clues about the root cause of the problem.

System with systemd

Use the following command to view logs generated since the last Netdata service restart:

journalctl _SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID="$(systemctl show --value --property=InvocationID netdata)" --namespace=netdata --grep pihole

System without systemd

Locate the collector log file, typically at /var/log/netdata/collector.log, and use grep to filter for collector's name:

grep pihole /var/log/netdata/collector.log

Note: This method shows logs from all restarts. Focus on the latest entries for troubleshooting current issues.

Docker Container

If your Netdata runs in a Docker container named "netdata" (replace if different), use this command:

docker logs netdata 2>&1 | grep pihole