Install Pi-hole on Ubuntu

Give the Ubuntu Machine a Fixed Address First

Pi-hole must live at an address that never changes, because every device in the house will be told to ask it for DNS. If its address moves, the whole house loses name resolution. Set a static IP on the Ubuntu machine before you install anything — or reserve its address in the router — and keep that address outside the range your router hands out automatically (the DHCP pool).

Update Ubuntu, Then Run the Official Installer

Pi-hole is installed with the project's own automated installer, straight from pi-hole.net. First update the system packages:

sudo apt update

Then run the installer exactly as published on pi-hole.net:

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

The installer checks your system, installs what Pi-hole needs, and then walks you through a few blue setup screens. Take them slowly — the next steps happen inside those screens.

Choose an Upstream DNS Provider

Pi-hole blocks the bad questions, but the good ones still need a real answer. In the installer you pick an upstream DNS provider — names like Cloudflare, Google, Quad9 or OpenDNS are offered in the list. Any of them works; the practical difference is speed and the provider's own logging policy. Pi-hole asks them only for domains that are not on your blocklists, and caches the answers, so repeat questions are answered locally and instantly.

Keep the Default Blocklist and Save the Admin Password

The installer offers a starting blocklist (the well-known Steven Black list). Leave it ticked — it is a sane, conservative starting point that blocks ads and trackers without breaking normal sites. Confirm the static IP details when asked, and let the installation complete.

Point Your Router at Pi-hole

Installing Pi-hole changes nothing until devices actually use it. Log in to your router's settings, find the DHCP or LAN DNS setting, and set the DNS server to the Pi-hole machine's static address. From then on, every device that joins your network is automatically told to resolve names through Pi-hole. Renew a device's connection (or reboot it) and it picks up the new DNS.

Verify From a Client, Not From the Server

Open a browser on a phone or laptop and load a few normal sites, then open the Pi-hole dashboard from that device:

http://pi.hole/admin

You can also open the machine's own address followed by /admin. You should see queries arriving live on the dashboard. That — not a successful install screen — is the proof the setup works: real devices, asking real questions, with the blocked ones quietly disappearing.

Know the Honest Limits Before You Expect Magic

Pi-hole blocks at the DNS level only. Ads that are served from the same domain as the content itself — YouTube in-stream ads are the famous example — cannot be blocked this way, because blocking that domain would block the videos too.