Custom Dns Server With Adblock

hello guys, as of writing this post this is christmas of 2019 (25 dec 2019), gosh time really goes fast!. How was the holidays? personal update: I have sevre cold & fever as of writing this, hope i’ll get better soon.

my requiremets

I want adblocking solution without any addons & applications for laptops/desktops/mobile.
I want it universal (meaning it has to work outside of my home network)
I should not waste time setting it up (should be quick and simple to setup)
should be configurable (easy to configure)
should work perfectly & should not cost me anything

explanation

Sound pretty simple ain’t it? we’ll it ain’t easy to do.

crossplatform (laptop/mobile/..anydevice that has access to internet)

This requirement rules out addons, applications on all devices.

work outside of my home network)

This requirement rules out private adblocking solutions, so a server is need for this, luckly, I have server on aws, but that server is already being used for a different purpose, so it has to be minimal impact on the cpu and memory

obvious anwser would be to use pi-hole pie-hole), my experience with pie-hole is not good, let me explain what i mean by that, I had problems trying to install it(the automated script did not work for me), it took me so much time to debug the error, second is it had a extra bit of cpu load compared to my other options.

should be quick and simple to setup)

I should not waste time learning a new tool,(don’t a industrial level dns server, I just need a simple solution), plus if any error, it should be easy for me to debug.

configurable (easy to configure)

some things i looked for, should be * able to mention, forward dns vendor (google/opendns) * easy to install * easy to add adblocking lists (just add files from differnet adblock sources) * easy to add whitelists * i should have a log, to inspect if anything is not working

should not cost me anything

This makes the solution to be open source, I already have a server that i am paying for so i’ll just add this to it, So there is no additional cost.

Hidden gem - The solution

So after trying several solutions(trust me i wasted a lot of time, installing & uninstalling) I arrived at grimd, an opensource project written in go. It had all the capabilities that I mentioned above(checkout the grimd’s page), It even comes in prebuilt binaries, So i do not even have to compile anything.

Installing it to myserver

download the binary from the release page
run it on the server
open port 51 (udp & tcp) on firewall inside cloud instance & vendor firewall
add my custom adblock list to the config file (grimd.toml)
change default nameserver to google dns in config file
change the dns server on my laptops & mobiles, that is it.

that is it, that is all i have to do, here is the log where it is in action


20:29:01.341 DEBU handler.go:252 ▶ 103c insert d.joinhoney.com IN A into cache with ttl 140
20:29:11.361 INFO handler.go:102 ▶ 103d 219.91.177.2 lookup　vortex.data.microsoft.com IN AAAA
20:29:11.361 DEBU cache.go:208 ▶ 103e KeyGen: vortex.data.microsoft.com IN AAAA 6210738ab9fea7763f2ba8ec16beb2c3
20:29:11.361 DEBU cache.go:123 ▶ 103f Cache: Key expired 6210738ab9fea7763f2ba8ec16beb2c3
20:29:11.361 DEBU cache.go:133 ▶ 1040 Cache: Cannot find key 6210738ab9fea7763f2ba8ec16beb2c3
20:29:11.361 DEBU handler.go:124 ▶ 1041 vortex.data.microsoft.com IN AAAA didn't hit cache
20:29:11.361 NOTI handler.go:180 ▶ 1042 vortex.data.microsoft.com found in blocklist
20:29:11.362 INFO handler.go:102 ▶ 1043 219.91.177.2 lookup　vortex.data.microsoft.com IN A
20:29:11.362 DEBU cache.go:208 ▶ 1044 KeyGen: vortex.data.microsoft.com IN A 87ca3e2c1cf9d028f97ce6794f963327
20:29:11.362 DEBU cache.go:123 ▶ 1045 Cache: Key expired 87ca3e2c1cf9d028f97ce6794f963327
20:29:11.362 DEBU cache.go:133 ▶ 1046 Cache: Cannot find key 87ca3e2c1cf9d028f97ce6794f963327
20:29:11.362 DEBU handler.go:124 ▶ 1047 vortex.data.microsoft.com IN A didn't hit cache
20:29:11.362 NOTI handler.go:180 ▶ 1048 vortex.data.microsoft.com found in blocklist
20:29:30.496 INFO handler.go:102 ▶ 1049 219.91.177.2 lookup　vortex.data.microsoft.com IN A
20:29:30.496 DEBU cache.go:208 ▶ 104a KeyGen: vortex.data.microsoft.com IN A 87ca3e2c1cf9d028f97ce6794f963327
20:29:30.496 DEBU cache.go:123 ▶ 104b Cache: Key expired 87ca3e2c1cf9d028f97ce6794f963327
20:29:30.496 DEBU cache.go:133 ▶ 104c Cache: Cannot find key 87ca3e2c1cf9d028f97ce6794f963327
...

> You might argue that, this is not a dns server, it is a proxy server for dns. Well it depends up how you see it

conclusion

From my experience, its simple, awsome & works great, No ads system wide! on all networks! on all devices!, My very own private dns server..XD.If you have any doubts, just dm me!

Today im going to share my method of adblocking with custom dns servers