Update Pi-hole's lists from remote sources

When using remote lists like this or this it's a hassle to manually check for changes and update - this script will do that for you!

User-created entries will not be touched and those removed from the remote list will be disabled instead.

If you're not using remote lists like the ones mentioned above then this script will be useless to you - Pi-hole already updates the lists weekly automatically.

Requirements

• Pi-hole v5+ installed (fresh install preferred)
• php-cli >=7.0 and a few extensions (sudo apt-get install php-cli php-sqlite3 php-intl php-curl)
• systemd is optional but recommended

Install

Docker users - look below.

This command will install this script to /usr/local/sbin:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jacklul/pihole-updatelists/master/install.sh | sudo bash

Alternatively you can clone this repo and sudo bash install.sh.

If systemd is available this will also add service and timer unit files to the system, otherwise a crontab entry in /etc/cron.d/pihole-updatelists will be created.

In the future to quickly update the script you can use sudo pihole-updatelists --update.

Note that in most cases you will be able to execute this script globally as pihole-updatelists command but some will require you to add /usr/local/sbin to $PATH or execute it via /usr/local/sbin/pihole-updatelists.

This script does nothing by default (except running pihole updateGravity), you have to configure it.

Disable default gravity update schedule

If you don't plan on updating adlists or want to keep Pi-hole's gravity update schedule you should skip this section and set UPDATE_GRAVITY=false in the configuration file.

You should disable entry with pihole updateGravity command in /etc/cron.d/pihole as this script already runs it:

sudo nano /etc/cron.d/pihole

Put a # before this line (numbers might be different):

#49 4   * * 7   root    PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin/" pihole updateGravity >/var/log/pihole_updateGravity.log || cat /var/log/pihole_updateGravity.log

Alternatively, the following sed command will disable the same entry:

sudo sed -e '/pihole updateGravity/ s/^#*/#/' -i /etc/cron.d/pihole

You might have to do this after each Pi-hole update.

Migrating lists and domains

If you already imported any of the remote lists manually you should migrate their entries to allow the script to disable them in case they are removed from the remote list.

If you used pihole5-list-tool to import adlists and whitelist you can use these commands to do this quickly:

sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "UPDATE adlist SET comment = 'Managed by pihole-updatelists' WHERE comment LIKE '%Firebog |%' OR comment LIKE '%[ph5lt]'"
sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "UPDATE domainlist SET comment = 'Managed by pihole-updatelists' WHERE comment LIKE '%AndeepND |%' OR comment LIKE '%[ph5lt]'"

(code up to date as of pihole5-list-tool 0.6.0)

Alternatively, some manual work is required - pick one:

• Manually modify comment field of all imported domains/adlists to match the one this script uses (see COMMENT variable in Configuration section) (recommended but might be a lot of work)
• Manually delete all imported domains/adlists from the web interface (might be a lot of work)
• Wipe all adlists and domains (not recommended but fast - use this if you want to start fresh)
  • backup your lists and custom entries (write them down somewhere, do not use the Teleporter)
  • run the following commands:

    sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "DELETE FROM adlist"
    sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "DELETE FROM adlist_by_group"
    sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "DELETE FROM domainlist"
    sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "DELETE FROM domainlist_by_group"
    

  • keep reading and configure the script then run sudo pihole-updatelists to finish up
  • (only when UPDATE_GRAVITY=false) run pihole updateGravity

Install with Docker

Follow the official instructions and add a volume for /etc/pihole-updatelists/ directory.

Using custom image

Use jacklul/pihole:latest image instead of pihole/pihole:latest.

Using official image

If you don't want to use my image you can write custom Dockerfile:

FROM pihole/pihole:latest

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -Vy php-cli php-sqlite3 php-intl php-curl

RUN wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jacklul/pihole-updatelists/master/install.sh | bash

You will have to update script's layer manually when update is released.

Container Configuration

Your docker-compose.yml file should look similar to this:

version: "3"

services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: jacklul/pihole:latest
    ports:
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      - "67:67/udp"
      - "80:80/tcp"
      - "443:443/tcp"
    environment:
      TZ: 'America/Chicago'
    volumes:
      - './etc-pihole/:/etc/pihole/'
      - './etc-dnsmasq.d/:/etc/dnsmasq.d/'
      - './etc-pihole-updatelists/:/etc/pihole-updatelists/'
    dns:
      - 127.0.0.1
      - 1.1.1.1
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    restart: unless-stopped

If you already have existing gravity.db you should also check out Migrating lists and domains section, keep in mind that you will have to adjust paths in the commands mentioned there.

Configuration

Default configuration file is /etc/pihole-updatelists.conf.

sudo nano /etc/pihole-updatelists.conf

Available variables

String values should be put between " ", otherwise weird things might happen.

You can also give paths to the local files instead of URLs, for example setting WHITELIST_URL to /home/pi/whitelist.txt will fetch this file from filesystem.

Multiple configurations

You can specify alternative config file by passing the path to the script through config parameter: pihole-updatelists --config=/home/pi/pihole-updatelists2.conf - this combined with different COMMENT string can allow multiple script configurations for the same Pi-hole instance.

Multiple list URLs

You can pass multiple URLs to the list variables by separating them with whitespace (space or new line):

ADLISTS_URL="https://v.firebog.net/hosts/lists.php?type=tick  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/you/adlists/master/my_adlists.txt"

If one of the lists fails to download nothing will be affected for that list type.

Recommended lists

Extra information

Runtime options

These can be used when executing pihole-updatelists.

Changing the schedule

By default, the script runs at random time (between 03:00 and 04:00) on Saturday, to change it you'll have to override timer unit file:

sudo systemctl edit pihole-updatelists.timer

[Timer]
RandomizedDelaySec=5m
OnCalendar=
OnCalendar=Sat *-*-* 00:00:00

Running custom commands before/after scheduled run

Override service unit file:

sudo systemctl edit pihole-updatelists.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStartPre=echo "before"
ExecStartPost=echo "after"

Changing comment value after running the script

sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "UPDATE adlist SET comment = 'NEWCOMMENT' WHERE comment LIKE '%Managed by pihole-updatelists%'"
sudo sqlite3 /etc/pihole/gravity.db "UPDATE domainlist SET comment = 'NEWCOMMENT' WHERE comment LIKE '%Managed by pihole-updatelists%'"

Replace NEWCOMMENT with your new desired comment value. This assumes Managed by pihole-updatelists is the old comment value, replace it with your old custom value when needed.

Custom comments for entries

If you wish to add custom comments to entries you can use the following file syntax:

example-domain.com # your comment

Which will cause example-domain.com to have comment set to your comment | Managed by pihole-updatelists.

You can also add your comments directly through the Pi-hole's web interface by either appending or prepending the comment field for entries.

Uninstalling

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jacklul/pihole-updatelists/master/install.sh | sudo bash /dev/stdin uninstall

or remove files manually:

sudo rm -vf /usr/local/sbin/pihole-updatelists /etc/bash_completion.d/pihole-updatelists /etc/systemd/system/pihole-updatelists.service /etc/systemd/system/pihole-updatelists.timer /etc/cron.d/pihole-updatelists

License

MIT License.