Pi-hole MCP Server

pihole-mcp

[License: MIT] [Node.js] [Pi-hole v6] [MCP]

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI assistants like Claude full control over your Pi-hole v6 DNS ad-blocker - query logs, allow/deny lists, group management, gravity reload, and stats. Designed from day one for multi-instance deployments: manage one or many Pi-hole instances from a single MCP endpoint.

Why?

Pi-hole's admin API is powerful but cumbersome to script against. This MCP server turns every Pi-hole API action into a tool that any MCP-compatible AI assistant can call directly. Instead of clicking through the admin UI or writing curl commands, just ask your AI to check what's being blocked, allowlist a domain, or compare stats across instances.

Perfect for homelabbers running multiple Pi-holes (primary + secondary, or per-VLAN), network admins managing DNS filtering at scale, and anyone who wants AI-assisted DNS management.

Features

• Multi-instance support - configure 1 to N Pi-hole instances via environment variables
• Full Pi-hole v6 API coverage - query logs, allow/deny lists (full CRUD), group and client management, blocking control, local DNS (A + CNAME) records, gravity reload, stats
• Smart regex detection - automatically routes domains to exact or regex lists based on metacharacter analysis
• Regex landmine detector - finds deny-exact entries that look like they should be regex (miscategorized rules)
• Docker-ready - multi-stage Dockerfile with non-root user, health checks, and security hardening
• Streamable HTTP or stdio transport - run as a long-lived HTTP service, or let the MCP client spawn it on demand
• Docker secrets support - passwords via env vars or /run/secrets/ files

Quick Start

Docker (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/ranklancer/pihole-mcp.gitcd pihole-mcpcp .env.example .env# Edit .env with your Pi-hole URL(s) and password(s)
mkdir -p secretsecho "your-pihole-password" > secrets/pihole_passwordchmod 600 secrets/pihole_password
cp docker-compose.example.yml docker-compose.ymldocker compose up -d

Node.js

npm installnpm run buildexport PIHOLE_INSTANCES=piholeexport PIHOLE_BASE_URL=http://pihole.example.comexport PIHOLE_PASSWORD=your-passwordnpm start

Local on demand (stdio, no Docker)

The MCP client starts the server as a child process when needed and talks to it over stdin/stdout. No port is opened and nothing keeps running in the background.

npm cinpm run buildcp .env.example .envchmod 600 .env# Edit .env with your Pi-hole URL(s) and password(s)

Register it with Claude Code (user scope):

claude mcp add --scope user pihole -- bash -c \  'set -a; . ~/path/to/pihole-mcp/.env; set +a; MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio exec node ~/path/to/pihole-mcp/dist/index.js'

Or add it manually to your MCP client config:

{  "mcpServers": {    "pihole": {      "type": "stdio",      "command": "bash",      "args": ["-c", "set -a; . ~/path/to/pihole-mcp/.env; set +a; MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio exec node ~/path/to/pihole-mcp/dist/index.js"]    }  }}

HOST and PORT from .env are ignored in stdio mode.

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables. See .env.example for the full reference.

Single Instance

PIHOLE_INSTANCES=piholePIHOLE_BASE_URL=http://192.0.2.100PIHOLE_PASSWORD=your-password

Multiple Instances

PIHOLE_INSTANCES=primary,secondaryPRIMARY_BASE_URL=http://192.0.2.100PRIMARY_PASSWORD=password1SECONDARY_BASE_URL=https://198.51.100.101SECONDARY_PASSWORD=password2SECONDARY_INSECURE_TLS=true

For each instance name in PIHOLE_INSTANCES, provide:

Docker secrets are supported as a fallback: /run/secrets/<name>_password (lowercase).

Available MCP Tools

Every tool accepts an optional instance parameter to target a specific Pi-hole. Defaults to the first configured instance.

Connecting to Your MCP Client

This section applies to the HTTP transport (Docker or npm start). For stdio, see Local on demand.

The server listens on http://HOST:PORT/mcp (default: http://localhost:3000/mcp). The HTTP endpoint has no authentication, so keep it bound to localhost or a trusted network.

Claude Desktop / Claude Code

Add to your MCP settings:

{  "mcpServers": {    "pihole": {      "url": "http://localhost:3031/mcp"    }  }}

Health Check

curl http://localhost:3031/health# {"ok":true,"service":"pihole-mcp","version":"0.3.0"}

Development

npm installnpm run dev     # Watch mode — recompiles on savenpm start       # Run the server

Requirements

• Node.js >= 20
• Pi-hole v6 with API access enabled
• Network connectivity to your Pi-hole instance(s)

Related Projects

• Pi-hole — Network-wide ad blocking
• Model Context Protocol — Open standard for AI tool integration
• MCP Server Registry — Directory of MCP servers

License

MIT