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Pi Hole Ad Blocker with Pi Zero W

Pi Hole Ad Blocker with Pi Zero W

Image for user adafruit2
by lady ada
published August 15, 2017, last edited January 21, 2025
last major update April 09, 2024
posted in Adafruit Products Raspberry Pi/ Pi Zero LCDs & Displays/ OLED
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212
Intermediate
Project guide
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Overview

raspberry_pi_pihole.gif

A long time ago we made a Pi into a WiFi gateway that also blocked ads but the Pi Hole project does a way better job!

This project will make your Pi Zero W act as a DNS (Domain Name Server) The kind of device that tells you that adafruit.com is known as IP address 104.20.38.240.

Except Pi Hole DNS will do a special trick, when it is asked for the IP address of ads.adserver.com (for example) it will return nothing! So you will never even connect to the ad server and get the ad. Your connection will be faster, less data, and no intrusive ads. It works great on computers, tablets, phones, etc. Even if you cannot run an ad-blocker plugin on your phone or tablet, this will work and ad-blocker-detectors can't tell you're running it.

Unlike our WiFi gateway demo, you do not have to set up the Pi as your access point, you will only use it as a DNS ad blocker so it will not act as a bottleneck

We upgraded our Pi Zero Pi Hole with a little display, that makes setting up clients easy and also gives you some nifty stats!

Follow along with this guide to DIY your own

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Project Parts

This project can be done with any Raspberry Pi, but for the most adorably compact version we're using a Pi Zero W - this has enough power to do what we want, and has built in WiFi too!

Pi Zero W base parts

Its easiest if you pick up a Pi Zero W budget pack as it contains most everything you need

Raspberry Pi Zero, SD card, cables, headers and case
Remember those cereal commercials that would always say, "part of a complete breakfast"? Well the Pi Zero's a lot like that bowl of cereal - while it's...
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But you can also just DIY with the minimum requirements:

1 x Pi Zero W
the type of low cost game-changing product Raspberry Pi's known for - the super light, super lean microcomputer we've come to know and low, but now with built-in WiFi.
1 x 4G or larger SD Card
You will be burning this card with Raspbian Jessie Lite so its ok if its blank or pre-burned
1 x Adafruit Pi Zero Enclosure
Adafruit's classic, sturdy plastic enclosure. Keeps your Pi Zero safe and sleek.
1 x 5V 1A USB wall adapter
This one is plenty good and you can use any Micro USB cable with it
1 x 5V 2.4A USB wall adapter
Super powerful for any uses, and comes with a built in MicroUSB cable

Pi OLED Display Addition

If you want to add an OLED display (which is suggested!) you'll also need:

Top view of assembled and powered on Adafruit PiOLED - 128x32 Monochrome OLED on a Pi Zero. The OLED displays a data readout.
If you're looking for the most compact li'l display for a Raspberry Pi (most likely a
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If you are using a Pi Zero W you'll need to add 2x20 headers too 

1 x 2x20 Male Header
Solder this in to plug in Pi HATs, GPIO cables, etc as you would into a normal Pi. Requires soldering

or

1 x 2x20 No-Solder Hammer Headers
If your soldering isn't quite up to scratch, or you just don't own a soldering iron yet, then these nifty hammer headers from Pimoroni might be just what you need.

Other things you may need...

You also need a way to burn that SD card!

Using a Pi 3 Instead of Pi Zero W

Instead of a Pi Zero W you can directly substitute in a Pi 3 which also has built in WiFi, you won't need the 2x20 header in that case

1 x Raspberry Pi 3
Raspberry Pi 3 with WiFi built in!

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Prepare the Pi

raspberry_pi_banner.jpg

The Pi Zero W is a very minimal computer, so it requires a little work to get it up and running.

We have a guide on how to set up your Pi Zero W 'headless' which is how we recommend you get started. Check out the guide for how to do that!

Here's the quick-start for people with some experience:

  1. Download the Raspberry Pi Imager to your computer
  2. Install the 64-bit Lite Raspberry Pi to your micro SD card using the imager. you may need to go to Raspberry Pi OS (other) to find it.
  3. When it asks you about settings, be sure you have your network settings entered and SSH enabled under Services.
  4. Re-plug the SD card into your computer (don't use your Pi yet!) and set up your wifi connection by editing supplicant.conf
  5. Plug the SD card into the Pi Zero W
  6. If you have an HDMI monitor we recommend connecting it up via the mini HDMI adapter we provide in the budget pack - so you can see that it's booting OK
  7. Plug in power to the Pi Zero W - you will see the green LED flicker a little. The Pi Zero will reboot while it sets up so wait a good 10 minutes
  8. If you are running Windows on your computer, install Bonjour support so you can use .local names, you'll need to reboot Windows after installation
  9. You can then ssh into raspberrypi.local or whichever hostname you entered under settings.

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Install Pi Hole

Use the following instructions to install Pi Hole:

https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#one-step-automated-install

Pre-Check

OK once you have set your Pi up and the WiFi is connecting to your home or office network, and you can ssh into it, continue with these easy steps! If you cannot connect via ssh yet, go back and read some of our guides until  you are able to log into your Pi.

raspberry_pi_ssh.png

Change Hostname

I like to do this first so I don't get confused between all the different Pi's in the house.

The hostname can be set in the imager before you get started, but if you forgot or you'd like to change it afterwards, just edit the hostname with sudo nano /etc/hostname and put something else on that first line, like pi-hole

raspberry_pi_hostname.png

Also change it in the hosts file with sudo nano /etc/hosts to match the same name. It's probably the last line:

adafruit_products_Screenshot_from_2019-03-27_16-09-58.png

Reboot and when you ssh in again, use pi-hole.local

Now's also a good time to change the Pi's password with passwd

Run Pi Hole Installer

There's more information on how installation at https://pi-hole.net/ - as of the writing of this guide, its easier to just run:

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

It will take quite a while to install, and may seem to 'hang' at points. Just let it do its thing for about 20 minutes!

The screenshots below are based on the 5.18.2 release of Pi-Hole. The latest version may have slightly different screens and options, but generally accepting defaults to everything should be OK.
adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.17.05_PM.png
adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.13.14_PM.png

Configuration

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.17.37_PM.png

The installer may complain about needing a requiring IP address, which is recommended. This is because DHCP reservations can expire. However, in practice, if the pi stays in communication with your DHCP server, it usually just keeps renewing the same IP address, which works well enough. if you have an advanced network set up, you can configure a custom IP address

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.18.00_PM.png

If you have your pi has multiple network interfaces such as WiFi and an ethernet adapter, it will ask you which one you would like to use.

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.18.18_PM.png

Pick who will be the upstream DNS (for non-ad blocked sites) - Google is fine and will probably be up all the time

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.18.31_PM.png

You can add any additional third party lists here or you can just use the default.

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.18.47_PM.png
adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.18.47_PM.png
adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.18.56_PM.png

The Web Interface is kinda cool, and is password protected. We'll be showing most of the stats on the little OLED but we still need the API to be running so install this.

You'll also need a web interface running, so select this as well unless you already have another one installed.

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.19.03_PM.png
adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.19.03_PM.png
adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_2.19.25_PM.png

If you'd like to retain a log of the ads that are blocked, you can enable query logging. If you enable it, you'll also be asked about the amount of content that you'd like logged.

It will keep installing! Just hold tight...

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_3.06.35_PM.png

When its done you'll get this final config screen! Copy & paste the password into another window for now

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_3.02.47_PM.png

Test Admin Page

On your desktop computer or tablet, visit http://pi.hole/admin or if that doesn't work, try http://[your-ip]/admin (replacing [your-ip] with you IP address) and you should see an administration panel!

raspberry_pi_admin.png

Test Blocking

On your tablet, phone, computer, etc - Set up your DNS server in the network settings to be the IP address of the Pi

raspberry_pi_djs.png

You may need to restart your network or browser to have it kick in, also there may be some cached ads so don't worry if not everything is blocked. Visit your favorite site with ads (not adafruit.com cuz we don't have any! :) and see the difference!

Now that you've got that done, lets continue and install the display!

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Install PiOLED

Our little PiOLED add on makes a very cute and easy way to display the Pi Hole stats. We were inspired to add this when we saw this tweet!

raspberry_pi_twet.png

What a perfect use! Here's how to add it on for some nice stats. It also displays the hostname and IP address so if you forget it you can just look at the display. It will also tick up when its in use so you can tell its working.

Install 2x20 Header

If you are using a Pi Zero you'll need to solder in or somehow attach a 2x20 header so you can plug in the Pi OLED. Use either a plain 2x20 header and solder it in using an iron + some solder...

Break-away 0.1" 2x20-pin Strip Dual Male Header
If we could eat headers, we'd have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  But we can't :( So we're making the best of it and selling them!This...
Out of Stock
Out of Stock

Or you can use Hammer headers which do not need soldering!

GPIO Hammer Header kit - Solderless Raspberry Pi Connectors with installation hardware
If your soldering isn't quite up to scratch, or you just don't own a soldering iron yet, then these nifty hammer headers from
$6.50
In Stock
Add to Cart

Either way, you'll want to end up with something like this:

raspberry_pi_2822-03.jpg

Setup Virtual Environment

Starting with the Bookworm version of Raspberry Pi OS, you will need to install your python modules in a virtual environment. Even on earlier versions, it's still recommended to install a virtual environment. You can find more information in the Python Virtual Environment Usage on Raspberry Pi guide. To Install and activate the virtual environment, use the following commands:

Copy Text 
sudo apt install python3-venv
python3 -m venv pihole --system-site-packages

You will need to activate the virtual environment every time the Pi is rebooted. To activate it:

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source pihole/bin/activate

To deactivate, you can use deactivate, but leave it active for now.

Enable I2C

Ensure that I2C is enabled by running raspi-config, selecting Interface Options, and selecting I2C.

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_5.00.23_PM.png

Install CircuitPython Libraries

This guide assumes that you've gotten your Raspberry Pi up and running, and have CircuitPython installed. If not, check out the guide:

To install the library for the Pi OLED, enter the following into the terminal:

Copy Text 
sudo apt-get install python3-pip
pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-ssd1306

We also need PIL to allow using text with custom fonts. There are several system libraries that PIL relies on, so installing via a package manager is the easiest way to bring in everything:

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sudo apt-get install python3-pil

And let's also make sure the requests module is installed:

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sudo apt install python3-requests
raspberry_pi_3527_top_demo_ORIG.jpg

A nice font really helps with this little OLED display, something other than the default PIL font. First thing I did is update the font so its a little clearer. I used Kottke's free Silkscreen font which looks great on small screens.

It's easy to install on your Pi, run

Copy Text 
cd ~
wget http://kottke.org/plus/type/silkscreen/download/silkscreen.zip
unzip silkscreen.zip
adafruit_products_Screenshot_from_2019-03-28_10-16-08.png

Update stats.py program

Here's the new stats.py code which uses the PiOLED.

Create a new file with nano ~pi/stats.py and paste this code below in! Then save it.

Download Project Bundle
Copy Code 
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2017 Limor Fried for Adafruit Industries
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2017 Tony DiCola for Adafruit Industries
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2017 James DeVito for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

# Copyright (c) 2017 Adafruit Industries
# Author: Ladyada, Tony DiCola & James DeVito
#
# Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
# of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
# in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
# to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
# copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
# furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
#
# The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
# all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
#
# THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
# IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
# FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
# AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
# LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
# OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
# THE SOFTWARE.

# This example is for use on (Linux) computers that are using CPython with
# Adafruit Blinka to support CircuitPython libraries. CircuitPython does
# not support PIL/pillow (python imaging library)!

# Import Python System Libraries
import json
import subprocess
import time

# Import Requests Library
import requests

# Import Blinka
from board import SCL, SDA
import busio
import adafruit_ssd1306

# Import Python Imaging Library
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont

API_TOKEN = "YOUR_API_TOKEN_HERE"
api_url = "http://localhost/admin/api.php?summaryRaw&auth="+API_TOKEN

# Create the I2C interface.
i2c = busio.I2C(SCL, SDA)

# Create the SSD1306 OLED class.
# The first two parameters are the pixel width and pixel height.  Change these
# to the right size for your display!
disp = adafruit_ssd1306.SSD1306_I2C(128, 32, i2c)

# Leaving the OLED on for a long period of time can damage it
# Set these to prevent OLED burn in
DISPLAY_ON  = 10 # on time in seconds
DISPLAY_OFF = 50 # off time in seconds

# Clear display.
disp.fill(0)
disp.show()

# Create blank image for drawing.
# Make sure to create image with mode '1' for 1-bit color.
width = disp.width
height = disp.height
image = Image.new('1', (width, height))

# Get drawing object to draw on image.
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(image)

# Draw a black filled box to clear the image.
draw.rectangle((0, 0, width, height), outline=0, fill=0)

# Draw some shapes.
# First define some constants to allow easy resizing of shapes.
padding = -2
top = padding
bottom = height - padding
# Move left to right keeping track of the current x position
# for drawing shapes.
x = 0

# Load nice silkscreen font
font = ImageFont.truetype('/home/pi/slkscr.ttf', 8)

while True:
    # Draw a black filled box to clear the image.
    draw.rectangle((0, 0, width, height), outline=0, fill=0)

    # Shell scripts for system monitoring from here :
    # https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/119126/command-to-display-memory-usage-disk-usage-and-cpu-load
    cmd = "hostname -I | cut -d\' \' -f1 | tr -d \'\\n\'"
    IP = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "hostname | tr -d \'\\n\'"
    HOST = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "top -bn1 | grep load | awk " \
          "'{printf \"CPU Load: %.2f\", $(NF-2)}'"
    CPU = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "free -m | awk 'NR==2{printf " \
          "\"Mem: %s/%sMB %.2f%%\", $3,$2,$3*100/$2 }'"
    MemUsage = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "df -h | awk '$NF==\"/\"{printf " \
          "\"Disk: %d/%dGB %s\", $3,$2,$5}'"
    Disk = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")

    # Pi Hole data!
    try:
        r = requests.get(api_url)
        data = json.loads(r.text)
        DNSQUERIES = data['dns_queries_today']
        ADSBLOCKED = data['ads_blocked_today']
        CLIENTS = data['unique_clients']
    except KeyError:
        time.sleep(1)
        continue

    draw.text((x, top), "IP: " + str(IP) +
              " (" + HOST + ")", font=font, fill=255)
    draw.text((x, top + 8), "Ads Blocked: " +
              str(ADSBLOCKED), font=font, fill=255)
    draw.text((x, top + 16), "Clients:     " +
              str(CLIENTS), font=font, fill=255)
    draw.text((x, top + 24), "DNS Queries: " +
              str(DNSQUERIES), font=font, fill=255)

    # skip over original stats
    # draw.text((x, top+8),     str(CPU), font=font, fill=255)
    # draw.text((x, top+16),    str(MemUsage),  font=font, fill=255)
    # draw.text((x, top+25),    str(Disk),  font=font, fill=255)

    # Display image.
    disp.image(image)
    disp.show()
    time.sleep(DISPLAY_ON)
    disp.fill(0)
    disp.show()
    time.sleep(DISPLAY_OFF)
View on GitHub
Running the OLED for a long period of time without changing the display can cause burn in. For that reason, the version of stats.py above does not show the information constantly.

You'll notice its very similar to the original stats.py but we've added PiHole API support. Here's how we did that!

First up, Pi Hole stats are available through the web server, in json format, so we need to add web requests and json parsing to python. Then set the URL for the API access, which is localhost (the same computer) and through the admin page:

Download File
Copy Code 
import subprocess
import json
import requests

api_url = 'http://localhost/admin/api.php'

We load up the nice Silkscreen font here, in 8 point type. Note that we have to have the full path of the file.

Download File
Copy Code 
# Load nice silkscreen font
font = ImageFont.truetype("/home/pi/slkscr.ttf", 8)

This is where we grab the API data. I put it in a try block, so it would retry in case the API access failed for some reason

Download File
Copy Code 
    # Pi Hole data!
    try:
      r = requests.get(api_url)
      data = json.loads(r.text)
      DNSQUERIES = data['dns_queries_today']
      ADSBLOCKED = data['ads_blocked_today']
      CLIENTS = data['unique_clients']
    except:
      time.sleep(1)
      continue

If you want to print out different info, run this small script in python to see what is available:

Download File
Copy Code 
import json
import requests

api_url = 'http://localhost/admin/api.php'
r = requests.get(api_url)
data = json.loads(r.text)
print(data)
adafruit_products_Screenshot_from_2019-03-28_10-11-21.png

You can also customize the display printout, but i liked having the IP first, then the pi hole stats below:

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Copy Code 
    draw.text((x, top),       "IP: " + str(IP) + "( " + HOST + ")",  font=font, fill=255)
    draw.text((x, top+8),     "Ads Blocked: " + str(ADSBLOCKED), font=font, fill=255)
    draw.text((x, top+16),    "Clients:     " + str(CLIENTS),  font=font, fill=255)
    draw.text((x, top+24),    "DNS Queries: " + str(DNSQUERIES),  font=font, fill=255)

Set API Token

Newer releases of Pi-Hole have added a authentication requirement for using the API. An API token must be provided when making an API request. This token was created when Pi-Hole was installed above. It can be found via the Web Admin interface under:

Settings > API > Show API token

Once found, update the stats.py code by changing this line:

Download File
Copy Code 
API_TOKEN = "YOUR_API_TOKEN_HERE"

and replacing YOUR_API_TOKEN_HERE with the API token found above. It'll be a big long string of numbers and letters that looks like gibberish. Leave the double quotes so it ends up looking something like this:

Download File
Copy Code 
API_TOKEN = "1234567890ABCDEF1234567890ABCDEF"

Test & Stats at Startup

Once you have the script saved, you can run it with:

Copy Text 
sudo ~pi/pihole/bin/python3 ~pi/stats.py

and look on the OLED to make sure you see your IP address and such!

Lastly we just want to make this run at boot. We'll do that the easy way by editing /etc/rc.local with sudo nano /etc/rc.local and adding sudo ~pi/pihole/bin/python3 ~pi/stats.py & before exit 0

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_5.04.09_PM.png

Then save and you can reboot to test it out

raspberry_pi_close.gif

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Install Mini PiTFT

We've updated our popular PiOLED script for use with the Mini PiTFT, a 135x240 Color TFT add-on for your Raspberry Pi. This cute little display has two tactile buttons on GPIO pins that we'll use to make a simple user-interface display for your Pi-Hole.

Video of Adafruit Mini PiTFT - 135x240 Color TFT Add-on assembled onto a Raspberry Pi 3. The TFT displays a bootup.
If you're looking for the most compact li'l color display for a Raspberry Pi (most likely a
guides with product
Out of Stock
Out of Stock

Install 2x20 Header

If you are using a Pi Zero, you'll need to solder on or somehow attach a 2x20 header so you can plug in the Pi OLED. Use either a plain 2x20 header and solder it in using an iron + some solder...

Break-away 0.1" 2x20-pin Strip Dual Male Header
If we could eat headers, we'd have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  But we can't :( So we're making the best of it and selling them!This...
Out of Stock
Out of Stock

Or you can use Hammer headers which do not need soldering.

GPIO Hammer Header kit - Solderless Raspberry Pi Connectors with installation hardware
If your soldering isn't quite up to scratch, or you just don't own a soldering iron yet, then these nifty hammer headers from
$6.50
In Stock
Add to Cart

Either way, you'll want to end up with something like this:

adafruit_products_raspberry_pi_2822-03.jpg

Setup Virtual Environment

Starting with the Bookworm version of Raspberry Pi OS, you will need to install your python modules in a virtual environment. Even on earlier versions, it's still recommended to install a virtual environment. You can find more information in the Python Virtual Environment Usage on Raspberry Pi guide. To Install and activate the virtual environment, use the following commands:

Copy Text 
sudo apt install python3-venv
python3 -m venv pihole --system-site-packages

You will need to activate the virtual environment every time the Pi is rebooted. To activate it:

Copy Text 
source pihole/bin/activate

To deactivate, you can use deactivate, but leave it active for now.

Python Setup

This guide assumes that you've gotten your Raspberry Pi up and running, have CircuitPython installed, and have installed CircuitPython libraries for the Mini PiTFT. If not, follow the steps in the guide below and come back to this page when you've completed them.

If you are getting a ModuleNotFound error, you may need to install the Python libraries by prepending the sudo command before the pip command since you will need to run the script as sudo.

Update the stats.py program

Here's the new stats.py code which uses the Mini PiTFT. 

Create a new file using nano ~pi/stats.py and paste the code below in. Then, save the code.

Download Project Bundle
Copy Code 
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2019 Brent Rubell for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# Import Python System Libraries
import time
import json
import subprocess

# Import Requests Library
import requests

#Import Blinka
import digitalio
import board

# Import Python Imaging Library
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont
import adafruit_rgb_display.st7789 as st7789

API_TOKEN = "YOUR_API_TOKEN_HERE"
api_url = "http://localhost/admin/api.php?summaryRaw&auth="+API_TOKEN

# Configuration for CS and DC pins (these are FeatherWing defaults on M0/M4):
cs_pin = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.CE0)
dc_pin = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D25)
reset_pin = None

# Config for display baudrate (default max is 24mhz):
BAUDRATE = 64000000

# Setup SPI bus using hardware SPI:
spi = board.SPI()

# Create the ST7789 display:
disp = st7789.ST7789(spi, cs=cs_pin, dc=dc_pin, rst=reset_pin, baudrate=BAUDRATE,
                     width=135, height=240, x_offset=53, y_offset=40)

# Create blank image for drawing.
# Make sure to create image with mode 'RGB' for full color.
height = disp.width   # we swap height/width to rotate it to landscape!
width = disp.height
image = Image.new('RGB', (width, height))
rotation = 90

# Get drawing object to draw on image.
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(image)

# Draw a black filled box to clear the image.
draw.rectangle((0, 0, width, height), outline=0, fill=(0, 0, 0))
disp.image(image, rotation)
# Draw some shapes.
# First define some constants to allow easy resizing of shapes.
padding = -2
top = padding
bottom = height-padding
# Move left to right keeping track of the current x position for drawing shapes.
x = 0


# Alternatively load a TTF font.  Make sure the .ttf font file is in the
# same directory as the python script!
# Some other nice fonts to try: http://www.dafont.com/bitmap.php
font = ImageFont.truetype('/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf', 24)

# Turn on the backlight
backlight = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D22)
backlight.switch_to_output()
backlight.value = True

# Add buttons as inputs
buttonA = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D23)
buttonA.switch_to_input()

while True:
    # Draw a black filled box to clear the image.
    draw.rectangle((0, 0, width, height), outline=0, fill=0)

    # Shell scripts for system monitoring from here:
    # https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/119126/command-to-display-memory-usage-disk-usage-and-cpu-load
    cmd = "hostname -I | cut -d\' \' -f1"
    IP = "IP: "+subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "hostname | tr -d \'\\n\'"
    HOST = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "top -bn1 | grep load | awk '{printf \"CPU Load: %.2f\", $(NF-2)}'"
    CPU = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "free -m | awk 'NR==2{printf \"Mem: %s/%s MB  %.2f%%\", $3,$2,$3*100/$2 }'"
    MemUsage = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "df -h | awk '$NF==\"/\"{printf \"Disk: %d/%d GB  %s\", $3,$2,$5}'"
    Disk = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
    cmd = "cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp |  awk \'{printf \"CPU Temp: %.1f C\", $(NF-0) / 1000}\'" # pylint: disable=line-too-long
    Temp = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True).decode("utf-8")


    # Pi Hole data!
    try:
        r = requests.get(api_url)
        data = json.loads(r.text)
        DNSQUERIES = data['dns_queries_today']
        ADSBLOCKED = data['ads_blocked_today']
        CLIENTS = data['unique_clients']
    except KeyError:
        time.sleep(1)
        continue

    y = top
    if not buttonA.value:  # just button A pressed
        draw.text((x, y), IP, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getbbox(IP)[3]
        draw.text((x, y), CPU, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getbbox(CPU)[3]
        draw.text((x, y), MemUsage, font=font, fill="#00FF00")
        y += font.getbbox(MemUsage)[3]
        draw.text((x, y), Disk, font=font, fill="#0000FF")
        y += font.getbbox(Disk)[3]
        draw.text((x, y), Temp, font=font, fill="#FF00FF")
        y += font.getbbox(Temp)[3]
    else:
        draw.text((x, y), IP, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getbbox(IP)[3]
        draw.text((x, y), HOST, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getbbox(HOST)[3]
        draw.text((x, y), "Ads Blocked: {}".format(str(ADSBLOCKED)), font=font, fill="#00FF00")
        y += font.getbbox(str(ADSBLOCKED))[3]
        draw.text((x, y), "Clients: {}".format(str(CLIENTS)), font=font, fill="#0000FF")
        y += font.getbbox(str(CLIENTS))[3]
        draw.text((x, y), "DNS Queries: {}".format(str(DNSQUERIES)), font=font, fill="#FF00FF")
        y += font.getbbox(str(DNSQUERIES))[3]

    # Display image.
    disp.image(image, rotation)
    time.sleep(.1)
View on GitHub

You'll notice it's very similar to the original stats.py, but we've added PiHole API support. Here's how we did that:

First up, Pi Hole stats are available through the web server, in JSON format, so we need to add web requests and JSON parsing to Python. Then set the URL for the API access, which is localhost (the same computer) and through the admin page:

Download File
Copy Code 
# Import Python System Libraries
import time
import json
import subprocess

# Import Requests Library
import requests

api_url = 'http://localhost/admin/api.php'

We load up the nice DejaVuSans font here. Note that we have to have the full path of the file.

Download File
Copy Code 
# Alternatively load a TTF font.  Make sure the .ttf font file is in the
# same directory as the python script!
# Some other nice fonts to try: http://www.dafont.com/bitmap.php
font = ImageFont.truetype('/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf', 24)

This is where we grab the API data. I put it in a try block, so it would retry in case the API access failed for some reason

Download File
Copy Code 
# Pi Hole data!
    try:
        r = requests.get(api_url)
        data = json.loads(r.text)
        DNSQUERIES = data['dns_queries_today']
        ADSBLOCKED = data['ads_blocked_today']
        CLIENTS = data['unique_clients']
    except KeyError:
        time.sleep(1)
        continue

If you want to print out different info, run this small script in python to see what is available:

Download File
Copy Code 
import json
import requests

api_url = 'http://localhost/admin/api.php'
r = requests.get(api_url)
data = json.loads(r.text)
print(data)
adafruit_products_Screenshot_from_2019-03-28_10-11-21.png

Since the MiniTFT has two tactile push-buttons, we modified the script to print out extra information from the Raspberry Pi when you press the top button.

Download File
Copy Code 
if not buttonA.value:  # just button A pressed
        draw.text((x, y), IP, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getsize(IP)[1]
        draw.text((x, y), CPU, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getsize(CPU)[1]
        draw.text((x, y), MemUsage, font=font, fill="#00FF00")
        y += font.getsize(MemUsage)[1]
        draw.text((x, y), Disk, font=font, fill="#0000FF")
        y += font.getsize(Disk)[1]
        draw.text((x, y), "DNS Queries: {}".format(DNSQUERIES), font=font, fill="#FF00FF")
    else:
        draw.text((x, y), IP, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getsize(IP)[1]
        draw.text((x, y), HOST, font=font, fill="#FFFF00")
        y += font.getsize(HOST)[1]
        draw.text((x, y), "Ads Blocked: {}".format(str(ADSBLOCKED)), font=font, fill="#00FF00")
        y += font.getsize(str(ADSBLOCKED))[1]
        draw.text((x, y), "Clients: {}".format(str(CLIENTS)), font=font, fill="#0000FF")
        y += font.getsize(str(CLIENTS))[1]
        draw.text((x, y), "DNS Queries: {}".format(str(DNSQUERIES)), font=font, fill="#FF00FF")
        y += font.getsize(str(DNSQUERIES))[1]

Set API Token

Newer releases of Pi-Hole have added a authentication requirement for using the API. An API token must be provided when making an API request. This token was created when Pi-Hole was installed above. It can be found via the Web Admin interface under:

Settings > API > Show API token

Once found, update the stats.py code by changing this line:

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Copy Code 
API_TOKEN = "YOUR_API_TOKEN_HERE"

and replacing YOUR_API_TOKEN_HERE with the API token found above. It'll be a big long string of numbers and letters that looks like gibberish. Leave the double quotes so it ends up looking something like this:

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Copy Code 
API_TOKEN = "1234567890ABCDEF1234567890ABCDEF"

Test & Stats at Startup

Once you have the script saved, you can run it with

Copy Text 
sudo ~pi/pihole/bin/python3 ~pi/stats.py
adafruit_products_IMG_8407.jpg
adafruit_products_IMG_8407.jpg
adafruit_products_IMG_1784.jpg

Look on the Mini PiTFT to make sure you see your IP address along with some statistics from Pi-Hole.

Pushing the top button should display extra statistics about the Pi such as its hostname, CPU load, memory utilization, disk usage, and DNS queries.

Lastly we just want to make this run at boot. We'll do that the easy way by editing /etc/rc.local with sudo nano /etc/rc.local and adding sudo ~pi/pihole/bin/python3 ~pi/stats.py & before exit 0

adafruit_products_Screenshot_2024-04-09_at_5.04.09_PM.png

Then save and you can reboot to test it out

adafruit_products_pi_hole_crop_1.png

Page last edited August 15, 2017

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