Trying to setup ExpressVPN with Pihole.....Need help!

VPN
1

My networking skills are limited even though I managed to successfully setup Pihole on my Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. I figured out, through trail/error, that my VPN is overriding my Pihole DNS on my PC. So for now, I have my VPN disabled on my PC in order to use Pihole effectively.

I manually input Raspberry Pi’s static IP as DNS server in iPV4 network settings. I do not have my Pihole setup on my network, yet.

I am trying to figure out a way to use ExpressVPN at the same time as Pihole and I am running out of ideas. I have found a few forums around the internet but none seem to have a solid answer. My only idea is to setup ExressVPN on the Raspberry Pi, but I’m not sure if that would even work.

I am newer to networking and am struggling, really don’t want to abandon my VPN all together.

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I would really appreciate any tips or suggestions in order for me to get this to work. I’m sure someone has done it before! Thank you all.

2

A few points to consider:

  1. You want the VPN DNS servers to override a local pihole instance to prevent leaking of DNS queries
  2. If you want _all_ things to go through the VPN, consider setting the VPN client up on the router. That way you can run through pihole first.
  3. Check if you VPN provider has an ad-blocking setting (several do) and you can deploy that while on the VPN

Good luck.

3

Thanks for the suggestions! I think the easiest way would be to purchase a router that is VPN compatible and go from there. Unfortunately, I am using my ISP’s router/modem combo.

If you have any suggestions as to which router would be a good purchase, I would love to hear them.

Also to summarize your points in my own thoughts together so I know we are on the same page.

  1. Setup VPN on viable router.
  2. Set my devices to connect to Pihole through DNS.
  3. Connect Pihole to new router.
  4. Good to go?

From my understanding, this will give me all of the benefits of a VPN, like ExpressVPN, and Pihole? I really only need a viable router that isn’t from my ISP?

4

Re: VPN - check routers in your price range to make sure they can run a VPN client (check their specs)

Any modern decent router with that capability can do the rest of your list :slight_smile: