Adguard home. Some setup help please

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

New to opwnwrt. Picked up a Belkin RT3200 last week. Got openWRT running on it but I can’t figure out adguard home.

I installed adguard and followed the setup guide on the adguard homepage. But the last part, where to put the dns addresses in. No idea where to put them. There’s so many places in openWRT that say dns etc. And most options, when I tried to put the adguard home dns server address in (192.168.0.1:52 eg) I get an error saying it’s not a proper address.

I know I’ve set it up wrong as it’s not blocking any ads and the statistics are all at 0 etc.

I’ve googled and honestly it’s all absolutely over my head.

All I want to do is block as many ads as possible, network wide (On my devices that are connected via Ethernet and Wi-Fi), it’s the main reason I grabbed an openWRT router.

Any help would be appreciated. If someone could just tell me where I’m supposed to put the addresses I’d really appreciate it.

Thank you.

2

The upstream dns settings are entered in the adguard home page.

To get your devices to use adguard you add its address to your dhcp settings in the openwrt network settings.

To be sure it’s setup correctly, what guide did you follow? The one here on the forum?

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3

I installed adguard home and followed the set-up guide they show when you sign up.

Where in DHCP settings?

I assumed it was DHCP and DNS > general settings > DNS forwardings

But obviously not as I get this error

2022-10-18_000322

4

As it says, what you typed isn't valid (why is there a port 54 noted?).

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Yeah, I get that it's invalid, I don't understand why it's invalid and what I should be putting there, if there is the correct place.

2022-10-18_002726

I assumed those were the dns server addresses I needed to input.

6

From the pic, you'd put the actual DNS servers where you want Global lookups to be performed on (e.g. 1.1.1.1 CloudFlare DNS, 8.8.8.8 Google DNS or 9.9.9.9 Quad 9 DNS). You don't self-reference.

The instructions you posted says it's the configuration for clients/end devces - not the server. The instructions are merely telling you that Adguard is listening on its own interface(s) for DNS queries.

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7

Honestly, I don't get what any of that means.

Is there an idiot's guide on setting it up on openwrt?

No worries if not, I’ll just give up. This is clearly beyond my capabilities.

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8

You have to put the IP of a real DNS server (this is the same when you setup any machine). I'm not sure how that's difficult - feel free to ask specific questions though.

See:

Hope this helps.

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9

I appreciate this must sound stupid to someone who understands how it all works.

I assumed the DNS servers from the AdGuard setup were real DNS servers, and those were what I'd have to put in openwrt.

Obviously I was wrong. But now I don't know what a real DNS server is, where I find one, and what to do with it once I do.

If the dns addresses given by adguard don't actually go anywhere in the openwrt setup, what's the point to them? What exactly do I do with them?

And how exactly do I set AdGuard up via openwrt?

10

Information already provided - three examples given:

You enter them exactly where you screenshoted in your post about the invalid address:

Your ISPs servers will work too. This part is the same for any setup of a computer/router to look up hostname. Also see: https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?query=public+dns+servers

You configure the clients to use them. As noted:

Internet (Global DNS server) <> OpenWrt router (with AdGuard set up to use Global DNS) <> Clients setup to use OpenWrt (running AdGuard)

  • Are you saying the screenshots above are not yours?
  • Are you asking for another guide?

Perhaps you should let us know what questions you have - based on what you're not understanding in the guide(s).

:point_right: EDIT: If you already setup your WAN interface properly with DNS servers (or via DHCP/DHCPv6 ) then 127.0.0.1 should work without the :54. It should be the normal dnsmasq instance listening on port 53:

Internet (Global DNS server) <> OpenWrt's dnsmasq <> OpenWrt (with AdGuard set up to use Global DNS) <> Clients setup to use OpenWrt's AdGuard

Hope this helps.

11

No, the screenshots are mine.

I get that, for you, I come across as incredibly dim. As you're not understanding what I don't get.

I don't really know how I can be any clearer on what I don't get. And I'm not trying to be arsey, I appreciate you taking the time to reply and trying to help. I'm clearly just out of my depth here.

This setup automatically covers all devices connected to your home router, no need to configure each of them manually.

Open the preferences for your router. Usually, you can access it from your browser via a URL, such as http://192.168.0.1/ or http://192.168.1.1/. You may be prompted to enter a password. If you don't remember it, you can often reset the password by pressing a button on the router itself, but be aware that if this procedure is chosen, you will probably lose the entire router configuration. If your router requires an app to set it up, please install the app on your phone or PC and use it to access the router’s settings.
Find the DHCP/DNS settings. Look for the DNS letters next to a field which allows two or three sets of numbers, each broken into four groups of one to three digits.
Enter your AdGuard Home server addresses there.

That's from the AdGuard setup guide.

I assumed I'd take one of these addresses, as given to me on the adguard setup page

127.0.0.1:54
[::1]:54
82.12.216.166:54
192.168.0.1:54
[fde3:f46e:b730::1]:54

And put them somewhere in the DHCP settings in OpenWrt, and that would be it, AdGuard would be set up.

I was obviously wrong. Because they're invalid addresses when put in the DNS forwarding. So I need to use Cloudflare DNS forwarding etc. So I've done that. I'm not getting how to make adguard home actually work, statistics are still at 0, I'm still getting ads, so I am obviously missing a step somewhere. But I don't know what that step is. I promise I'm not a simple as I seem in this post, once I figure it out it will click into place and I'll feel suitably idiotic for not grasping it. But until then, Im just stuck at idiotic.

12

Try 127.0.0.1

I explained why this should work if your WAN/WAN6 is setup properly.

Now, regarding the list of addresses:

You now configure your network and clients to use this, instead of port 53.

The guides provide this information. This part in the guide very important, because it talks about moving the original dnsmasq port:

So, I would suggest following the guide, or asking there as well - if you continue to have detailed AdGuard setup questions.

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13

Thank you. That makes sense.

So the addresses are for use with my phone and pc etc. Not to be out into openWRT.

Again thank you for taking the time to help. I appreciate it.

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14

The following thread is the current updated version to follow.

You should not need to change openwrt settings as those scripts do the work to move dnsmasq from port 53 (DNS port) to a backup port (54). This allows AGH to become your primary DNS server for your downstream LAN clients. Dnsmasq becomes your local dns server for your downstream clients. In short? public internet addresses are looked up via AGH, but local lan addresses eg laptop.lan are looked up via dnsmasq.

As for DNS settings, there are multiple places and reasons for this.

  • dns settings for AGH should be the upstream servers you want to pull dns from. (AGH upstreams) - https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome/wiki/Configuration#upstreams

  • Dns settings for OpenWrt is what the router uses to look up data. (WAN Dns)
    This doesn't need to change but there is a script to change from your ISP dns for the router to a public one like Cloudflare or any other you choose.

  • Dns settings for DHCP is what your downstream clients will use. (Lan DNS) This is passed by DHCP settings and is also set via those scripts.

That hopefully will help with your confusion.

:edit: tided the dns bit to make it more readable.

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15

Just to update, up and running now. I used the adguard dns addresses in the forwarding setting, adding #54 instead of :54, saved those and hey presto, all working now.

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