Really confused by pi-hole

Running Manjaro, have "pi-hole" installed and running from the AUR (Arch User Repositories)
It seems to be working - none of the boxes are getting any ads - disabled the ad-blockers - so it looks like it works.

Can't find any sites with ads to test it...

But seriously, I can't figure out how to get at the admin gui - none of the instructions work for that:

There are three ways to get to the admin dashboard from your Web browser: http://<IP_ADDPRESS_OF_YOUR_PI_HOLE>/admin/ http:/pi.hole/admin (when using Pi-hole as your DNS server) http://pi.hole/ 24.9k (when using Pi-hole as your DNS server)

None of these addresses can be reached.

Any help out there?

This is a shot in the dark, but have you tried http://localhost/pi-hole/admin or http://localhost/[path/to/pi-hole]/admin or some variant thereof?

I looked at the Wikipedia article. This looks sort of like an automated hosts file.

Thanks, frankbell.
I've tried them now, and get a "site can't be reached", same as the addresses in my first post.


Another case of documentation writers thinking we're all telepathic.

Ok then...

if I go just to 192.168.0.11, the index shows a directory "pihole", and in that the directories "admin" and "pihole" as in http://192.168.0.11/pihole/admin/

Variations on the path still just get a file listing, no sign of any gui anywhere..

So what am I not seeing/understanding her, anybody know?

Drat. I'm sorry that my shot in the dark missed the target, but I must admit that this made me smile:

Another case of documentation writers thinking we're all telepathic

There's a reason that "technical writer" is a skill in and of itself. I know. I used to be one.

Take a look at the MVPS Hosts file that I linked to. I've used it for years; it redirects ad sites, like doubleclick, to localhost, effectively blocking their droppings, and it is well-maintained and regularly updated. It doesn't make all of them go away, but it certainly ameliorates the agony.

pi-hole does seem to work - no ad-blockers, and no ads.

But I would like to be able to see what's up, right?

I even went back to dedoimedo's article to look (- of course that's where i found this ) but it didn't help.

you need to set your pi-hole as name server (dns). I don't know how did you configure it, but it will resolve pi.hole (for example)

This is what is confusing - I'm not understanding what the pi-hole address is or where to find it - I know it's in the docs but I seem to be having a mental block on this...
Really frustrating.

I installed the full server packages from the AUR, and there was no configuration necessary.
I couldn't even tell it was installed until I ran "pihole staus" which tells me

MainBox ~]$ pihole status
  [✓] DNS service is running
  [✓] Pi-hole blocking is Enabled

But I can't figure out anything else....

I went looking for the pihole install log, that the instructions said would be in /etc/pihole/install.log, but there isn't one. Snooping in other files I found the pihole DNS address, anyway.

But those commands above to start the "admin interface" still don't work - I just get lists.
Nor can I find a CLI option that will start the Admin Console.

What am I not getting here?

this is not the installation of pi-hole itself, but the configuration of your host to use pi-hole as dns (if it was already running).

The IP address is the address of your MainBox and if the web browser only shows a directory listing then it is a web server problem.

Is a web server installed and running on MainBox? If so then it isn't configured correctly.