Configuring Caddy for Pi-hole
This is an unsupported configuration created by the community
If you'd like to use Caddy as your main web server with Pi-hole, you'll need to make a few changes.
Modifying lighttpd configuration¶
First, change the listen port in this file: /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:
server.port = 1080
In this case, port 1080 was chosen at random. You can use a custom port.
Next, restart the lighttpd server with either of these commands:
sudo systemctl restart lighttpd
or
sudo service lighttpd restart
Setting up your Caddyfile¶
Now set up a "virtual host" in your Caddyfile (default /etc/caddy/Caddyfile). There are many options you can add, but at a minimum, you need to make a "default" host by binding 0.0.0.0:80. This will accept requests for any interface.
blackhole:80, pi.hole:80, 0.0.0.0:80 {
root /var/www/html/pihole
log /var/log/caddy/blackhole.log
rewrite {
ext js
to index.js
}
proxy / localhost:1080 {
transparent
}
}
In this case, I've chosen to also add blackhole and pi.hole as valid names to open the admin page with.
Finally, restart your Caddy server: sudo service caddy restart
Verifying your setup¶
First, make sure that any other sites you're serving from caddy are still functioning. For example, if you have a block for myawesomesite.com:80 in your Caddyfile, open up a browser to http://myawesomesite.com and verify it still loads.
Next, verify you can load the admin page. Open up http://pi.hole/admin (or use the IP address of your server) and verify that you can access the admin page.
Finally, verify that requests for ads are being black holed:
$ curl -H "Host: badhost" pi.hole/
<html>
<head>
<script>window.close();</script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
Replace the URL pi.hole with the IP address or alternate DNS name you're using if necessary.
Lastly, ensure that requests for JavaScript files from advertisement domains are being served properly:
curl -H "Host: badhost" pi.hole/malicious.js
var x = "Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements."