this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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Hi guys! So...I have a self-hosted DNS server. Initially I'd use pihole, with unbound, and the more or less basic blocklists. But from time to time things would start acting wonky. Sometimes a reboot would fix it. Sometimes...not really and I was really not sure what was going wrong, but it was clearly DNS. Changing the clients settings from my own server to something like 9.9.9.9 would immediately get it sorted out.

So I went with an adguard server. In the last few days I've started to notice weird behaviors. Today I've lost the Azure desktop I was connected, and it was very clearly looking like DNS. So I checked...and yup, 9.9.9.9 again would sort it all out. So...I'm not sure what's going wrong. I'm selfhosting these on an LXC container in proxmox. Nothing else seems to have issues connecting, and I see almost no resources being used. Any ideas? Any other DNS server I might be able to try?

Thanks!

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[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

My 2c.

Changing "DNS" won't fix it. There are two DNS: dnsmasq and unbound (and bind, ok). What else you use doesn't matter (pihole, adguard, opnSense) at the end of the day it's always them inside.

In my experience ISPs will block your direct DNS queries overtime, so it might be that. I set up my unbound as caching and forwarding, not as a pure resolver. This fixed all my issues with DNS self hosted. You can forward to 9.9.9.9 if you like it.

Another issue might be with your blocklists of course, your azure might have been temporary listed maybe.

Over time I ended up choosing a very lax blocklist setup due to this reason

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

In my experience ISPs will block your direct DNS queries overtime,

I have no idea what ISP you're using, but that's probably not true. Lots of devices have hard-coded DNS servers and nothing would work if ISPs stated blocking dns upstream queries.

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Above some threshold, the one you will cross when filtering port 53 in your network and setup a custom full resolver, it can happen.

I experienced it, it seems they filter excess dns traffic from inside. Probably more a malware/anti spam measure than an actually DNS blocking.

[–] pishadoot@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Even if your ISP did have something in place to try and prevent abuse I find it unlikely it would trigger over normal traffic. Do you have a huge network/many hosts/exposed services?

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just a normal 4 people home, two teenagers tough. Enabling a DNS resolver indeed stop working after a few days while setting it up as forwarder to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 or pick yours works just fine.

Maybe it's something else, but when it happens, that's the feel

[–] pishadoot@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Not trying to go down a rabbit hole, nor invade your teen's privacy, but have you done any kind of packet inspection on what's going out/in? Teens can surprise you with the kind of stuff they're up to sometimes.

I'm not sure why your resolver started acting up but what you're describing doesn't sound like normal cause/effect. Four people on a residential connection, even if you throw in a ton of electronic devices and iot/crap that calls home constantly shouldn't cause any kind of ISP engagement.

Not like it really matters, for 99.9% of people having a forwarder is easy and just fine and there isn't good reason to troubleshoot it if there's a working solution. I'm pretty privacy conscious and I don't even think having my own forwarder is worth the hassle, I am just choosy about my upstream.