My current setup is a TP-Link wireless extender. From that I have my own little network that connects my computer, wireless devices and a Raspberry Pi 4. The RPi4 runs the Home Assistant OS for my small network of lights and switches. The TP-Link extender does not have enough memory to support OpenWRT which means I am dependent on the proprietary android app to configure it.
I thought I could use the integrations in HA to add OpenWRT and Pi-Hole but it looks like those integrations are for communicating with instances and devices not within the HA operating system.
What I was hoping to accomplish was to run HA, OpenWRT and Pi-Hole on the same RPi4 device and re-use the TP-Link extender elsewhere in the house to serve ad-blocked internet that extends beyond my little network of devices.
Would running multiple services like this be too demanding for the RPi4? And if it is possible, where is a good place to start?
I’ve successfully run HA and PiHole (and also HA and Adguard) on the same pi4 before now.
First I would check and see if you can get your current router to use a DNS address other than the one your IP put on it. If that’s the case (unlike me) you can just point your router at your PiHole (or Adguard) DNS and have adblocking network wide.
If you can’t do that (like me) then I’ve had quite good results from having PiHole (or Adguard) running as my DHCP server. This is the thing in your network that gives all your devices their IP address. First you turn it off in your router, then turn it on in PiHole and configure it from there. You can then have this DHCP server point at your PiHole DNS and have adblocking network wide.
The downside is that all your devices will then have a new IP address given by the new DHCP server. To combat this, you should save your IP reservations or maybe even all the IP addresses on your network, and set them as static IP addresses on your PiHole DHCP server.
It works. But if your Pi goes down at any time your devices may forget who they are (lose their IP address reservations) and have a bit of an existential crisis. Easy fix, usually just turn it off and on again and reboot your router, and maybe all your devices, so they can “Find Themselves” again.
Best of luck
Fortunately the ISP provided modem/router has DNS support. I managed to install Adguard as an add-on in Ha OS. I just need to figure out why HA OS refuses to change my IPv4 address to static mode. After that I can change the DNS address and hopefully I can get rid of ads in my house.
Good news then! Try setting your IP in your router for your Pi, that should give it a static address if you can’t set it on the pi