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Pi-Hole Pi-Hole

Container

OtherTools

A Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application which acts as a DNS sinkhole.

Image details

Pulls: 979.9M
Architecture: amd64, arm64, arm/v7, arm/v6, 386, riscv64
Image size: 41 MB
Latest: 2026.07.2
User: pihole
Created: Jul 19, 2018
Updated: 23 hours ago
Status: active

Configuration

Type
Container
Platform
linux
Image
pihole/pihole:latest
Ports
53:53/tcp53:53/udp67:67/udp1010:80/tcp4443:443/tcp
Volumes
/etc/pihole : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/PiHole/etc/dnsmasq.d : /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/PiHole/DNS
Restart
unless-stopped

Template by mikestraney

Notes

When the installation is complete, navigate to your.ip.goes.here:1010/admin. Follow the article here if you run into issues binding to port 53.

Standalone Install

Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying Pi-Hole

Installation method

Install on Portainer

Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys

  1. Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
  2. Log into your Portainer web UI
  3. Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
  4. Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
  5. Select Pi-Hole, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me demo

More install options in our documentation.

Docker Pi-hole

Build Status Docker Stars Docker Pulls
<img src="https://pi-hole.github.io/graphics/Vortex/vortex_with_text.svg" width="144" height="256" alt="Pi-hole website">
Network-wide ad blocking via your own Linux hardware 

<a href="https://pi-hole.net/">Pi-hole website</a> |
<a href="https://docs.pi-hole.net/">Documentation</a> |
<a href="https://discourse.pi-hole.net/">Discourse Forum</a> |
<a href="https://pi-hole.net/donate">Donate</a>


Upgrade Notes

!NOTE Using Watchtower?\ See the Note on Watchtower in our documentation.

!TIP Some users have reported issues with using the --privileged flag on 2022.04 and above.\ TL;DR, don't use that mode, and be explicit with the permitted caps (if needed) instead.

Quick Start

Using Docker-compose:
  1. Copy the below docker compose example and update as needed:

# More info at https://github.com/pi-hole/docker-pi-hole/ and https://docs.pi-hole.net/
services:
  pihole:
    container_name: pihole
    image: pihole/pihole:latest
    ports:
      # DNS Ports
      - "53:53/tcp"
      - "53:53/udp"
      # Default HTTP Port
      - "80:80/tcp"
      # Default HTTPs Port. FTL will generate a self-signed certificate
      - "443:443/tcp"
      # Uncomment the line below if you are using Pi-hole as your DHCP server
      #- "67:67/udp"
      # Uncomment the line below if you are using Pi-hole as your NTP server
      #- "123:123/udp"
    environment:
      # Set the appropriate timezone for your location (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones), e.g:
      TZ: 'Europe/London'
      # Set a password to access the web interface. Not setting one will result in a random password being assigned
      FTLCONF_webserver_api_password: 'correct horse battery staple'
      # If using Docker's default `bridge` network setting the dns listening mode should be set to 'ALL'
      FTLCONF_dns_listeningMode: 'ALL'
    # Volumes store your data between container upgrades
    volumes:
      # For persisting Pi-hole's databases and common configuration file
      - './etc-pihole:/etc/pihole'
      # Uncomment the below if you have custom dnsmasq config files that you want to persist. Not needed for most starting fresh with Pi-hole v6. If you're upgrading from v5 you and have used this directory before, you should keep it enabled for the first v6 container start to allow for a complete migration. It can be removed afterwards. Needs environment variable FTLCONF_misc_etc_dnsmasq_d: 'true'
      #- './etc-dnsmasq.d:/etc/dnsmasq.d'
    cap_add:
      # See https://docs.pi-hole.net/docker/#note-on-capabilities
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your DHCP server, else not needed
      - NET_ADMIN
      # Required if you are using Pi-hole as your NTP client to be able to set the host's system time
      - SYS_TIME
      # Optional, if Pi-hole should get some more processing time
      - SYS_NICE
    restart: unless-stopped

  1. Run docker compose up -d to build and start pi-hole (Syntax may be docker-compose on older systems).

!NOTE Volumes are recommended for persisting data across container re-creations for updating images.

Automatic Ad List Updates

cron is baked into the container and will grab the newest versions of your lists and flush your logs. This happens once per week in the small hours of Sunday morning.

Documentation

For more detailed information, please refer to our documentation:

Docker tags and versioning

The primary docker tags are explained in the following table. Click here to see the full list of tags. See GitHub Release notes to see the specific version of Pi-hole Core, Web, and FTL included in the release.
The Date-based (including incremented "Patch" versions) do not relate to any kind of semantic version number, rather a date is used to differentiate between the new version and the old version, nothing more.
Release notes will always contain full details of changes in the container, including changes to core Pi-hole components.
tagdescription
latestAlways the latest release
2022.04.0Date-based release
nightlyBuilt and pushed whenever there are changes on the development branch and additionally produced by the scheduled nightly job. These are the most experimental development images and may change frequently

User Feedback

Please report issues on the GitHub project when you suspect something docker related. Pi-hole or general docker questions are best answered on our user forums

Serve Pi-Hole on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxying pi-hole.example.com to http://pihole:80

Add this to your Caddyfile

pi-hole.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://pihole:80
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

  • In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs pihole
  • Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:53 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

  • Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :53
  • Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 53:53 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

  • Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:1010. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
  • Give it a minute after first deploy, pihole can take a while to initialise.
  • Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 1010

Permission denied on volumes

If the logs show "permission denied", the app can't write to its data folder on the host.

  • Fix the ownership: sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/PiHole (and the same for the other mapped folders)

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull pihole/pihole:latest

  • "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists. This template uses latest, so try pinning a specific version instead.
  • "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
  • "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

  • This image supports: amd64, arm64, arm/v7, arm/v6, 386, riscv64
  • Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

  • Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
  • Get the exit code with docker inspect pihole --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
  • Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.

Raise an issue

Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.

A single container

Pi-Hole runs as one container, the simplest kind of app here. Just the one image to pull and nothing else wired up alongside it.

The app image

An image is the app packed up ready to go, everything Pi-Hole needs bundled into one download. This template pulls pihole/pihole:latest, which Docker fetches once (about 41 MB) and then starts your own copy from.

Where the image comes from

Docker pulls its images from registries, public libraries of ready-built apps. Pi-Hole's comes from Docker Hub, published by pihole.

Version tags

The bit after the colon in the image name is the version tag. Here it's latest, which always points at the newest build, so a redeploy can bump you to a newer release without you asking. Newest right now is 2026.07.2. Pin a specific tag if you would rather stay on one version.

Which machines it runs on

Every image is built for particular CPU types. This one ships for amd64, arm64, arm/v7, arm/v6, 386, riscv64, so it runs on both regular x86 servers and ARM boards like a Raspberry Pi.

Ports

A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 53:53 means it's reachable on port 53 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. Once it's running, open http://your-server-ip:1010 in a browser. It opens:

  • 53:53
  • 53:53 over UDP
  • 67:67 over UDP
  • 1010:80, likely the web interface
  • 4443:443, likely the web interface

Volumes

A volume is where Pi-Hole keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:

  • /etc/pihole from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/PiHole on the host
  • /etc/dnsmasq.d from /portainer/Files/AppData/Config/PiHole/DNS on the host

Restart policy

The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts Pi-Hole after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).

Networking

Nothing custom is set, so Pi-Hole sits on Docker's default bridge network: its own private space that reaches the outside world only through the ports it publishes.

Container name

Once it's deployed, Portainer names the container pihole. That's what you'll spot in the containers list and use in commands like docker logs pihole.

Platform

The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.

Portainer app templates

Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set Pi-Hole up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying Pi-Hole is a click rather than a wall of config.