Pi-hole Core v5.2.3, Web v5.3 and FTL v5.4 released!

Adam Warner 2021-01-15 Updates 17

A new year, a new release!

Before running pihole -up to update, make sure you’ve read over the release notes below to ensure there’s nothing that would stop you from upgrading. ~~Pi-hole docker containers will be updated in due course… (before anyone asks “Where’s the Docker update??”)~~

Update: Docker containers now tagged at :v5.4

Core:

Only use ‘Location:’ header for FTL update check on Github API #3987 (@dschaper)
Allow @ in adlist URLs #3912 (@mdujava)
Change wording in whiptail for adlist selection #3943 (@yubiuser)
Further failsafe check for available APT packages #3537 (@MichaIng)
Remove deprecated malwaredomains list #3937 (@yubiuser)
Fix connection mechanism between Chronometer and FTL #3954 (@DL6ER )
Fix release check for centos stream #3958 (@bcambl)

Web:

Implement dark theme on the modal dialogs #1674 (@kevlg)
Add more query type names to title of Query Log instead of “type ” #1671 (@Daxtorim)
Fix sorting by reply in Query Log #1669 (@Daxtorim)
Change radius to 10px for a more modern look. #1691 (@Gontier-Julien)
Remove unnecessary backround-color for the interface. #1692 (@Gontier-Julien)
Fix gray space on the left side for cleaner look. #1693 (@Gontier-Julien)
Fix charts overflowing. #1694 (@Gontier-Julien)

FTL:

New

Implement support for displaying exact type instead of just OTHER #1013
Add new query types SVCB and HTTPS #1010 (@DL6ER)
These queries where shown as OTHER before. Now they can be distinguished on the query log pages and are included as separate items in the daily statistics.
Detect and handle interface changes of clients with the same IP #999 (@DL6ER)
Update SQLite3 to 3.34.0 #1006 (@DL6ER)
We also expose a full-fledged SQLite3 shell interface through pihole-FTL sqlite3

Fixes

Fix for errno not being set by posix_fallocate() #1023 (@DL6ER)
Check for validity of iface pointer before dereferencing it #1018 (@DL6ER)
Don’t show retried queries when filtering for blocked queries #1022 (@Daxtorim)
Do not record NXDOMAIN from DNS cache as “regex blocked” #1014 (@DL6ER)
Added missing NS query type to getQueryTypes() #1007 (@Daxtorim)
Do not return regex idx if privacy level > 0 #1016 (@DL6ER)

Notable Replies

DanSchaper says:

2021-01-16

anon55913113:

it is contained in pihole-FTL just as DNSmasq is.

That.

Edlt:

You can actually symlink pihole-FTL to sqlite3 and run sqlite3 normally on the command line.
PromoFaux says:

2021-01-16

Seems like everyone is saying it, and I feel left out.

Yes.
deHakkelaar says:

2021-01-17
DanSchaper:

You can actually symlink pihole-FTL to sqlite3 and run sqlite3 normally on the command line.

Nice.
For the ones that dont have the sqlite3 package installed:
```
pi@ph5:~ $ apt policy sqlite3
sqlite3:
  Installed: none
  Candidate: 3.27.2-3+deb10u1
[..]
```
```
pi@ph5:~ $ stat /usr/bin/sqlite3
stat: cannot stat '/usr/bin/sqlite3': No such file or directory
```
But still want sqlite3 available on the prompt, you can symlink with below:
```
pi@ph5:~ $ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/pihole-FTL /usr/bin/sqlite3
pi@ph5:~ $
```
And test:
```
pi@ph5:~ $ sqlite3 --version
3.34.0 2020-12-01 16:14:00 a26b6597e3ae272231b96f9982c3bcc17ddec2f2b6eb4df06a224b91089fed5b
```
```
pi@ph5:~ $ sqlite3 /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db ".stats"
Memory Used:                         0 (max 0) bytes
Number of Outstanding Allocations:   0 (max 0)
Number of Pcache Overflow Bytes:     4104 (max 4104) bytes
[..]
```
DanSchaper says:

2021-01-17

anon55913113:

Don't forget PHP.

We haven't. https://ph7.symisc.net/

Though maybe we won't even need PHP soon?
DL6ER says:

2021-01-18
MichaIng:

So the sqlite3 command is still used by Pi-hole itself? When replacing those calls with pihole-FTL sql , it would not matter what the user does, if sqlite3 is installed or not.

Yes, that's the plan. Embedding dnsmasq into FTL made our scripts a lot easier as we could remove all the if(version == ...) elif(version == ...) ... stuff. Only later on, we hooked more inanimately into dnsmasq to make possible what Pi-hole can do today (regex, groups, CNAME inspection and all the things).

Embedding SQLIte3 into FTL was also meant to give us precise control about what we can expect for our scripts. Exposing the sqlite3 CLI to the user via various methods (including the symlink drop-in replacement) was just a convenience feature for those who always want up-to-date sqlite3 on their systems without yet another third-party repos or compiling from source.

The main driver for this was the new UPDATE FROM which only became part of sqlite3 last fall. This command will likely never arrive in existing/older repositories. Sometime in 2020 is too bleeding-edge for them (and that's okay!).

It is planned to (read as: I plan to) replace sqlite3 by pihole-FTL sqlite3 in all the scripts, but I haven't found the time to do so.

MichaIng:

Indeed creating the symlink breaks the package install, so that is only something that users could do manually for convenience or to make the command available for other scripts/programs.

We should discuss this. My plans are:
- Remove sqlite3 as dependency from the installer. New installs will not get it, existing ones won't care (it would also not be removed)
- Use pihole-FTL sqlite3 everywhere in the scripts. pihole-FTL will be available before the first gravity run which is where sqlite3 will be used for the first time.
- If users what to do something where sqlite3 is needed, they will get command not found. They can then either install the OS package or symlink (if they are aware of this). Those who want to play with the CLI likely already have the binary.
- I don't see us making the symlink for user automatically, even not if the binary is not installed. apt overwriting our symlink if they later decide to install the OS package seems correct, whichever decision we make. This can be debated, for sure.
anon55913113:

Don't forget PHP.

We're all looking towards Pi-hole v6.0 here. I don't expect much further development for the v5.x branches - except frm bug fixes, of course. Pi-hole v6.0 currently uses the embedded PH7 library for interpreting PHP. Pi-hole v6.0 already has zero dependencies on any external web server or PHP (so also not on PHP extensions like php-sqlite3).