Raspberry PI as Relay | Voters

Raspberry PI as Relay

Mateusz

Create easy, smooth way to install, configure and use raspberry pi as Relay.

February 5, 2024

Eric Nix

I was able to successfully deploy the DNS relay server on my Synology NAS using docker/container manager. Just tried installing it on my Raspberry Pi 5, but I'm getting exec errors.

Update: I was able to get it working with help from support.

Don't use Docker to run it. It's not compatible with Raspberry Pi.

Here's what I did:

Raspberry Pi 5 (A76 processor)
Generate your config file using the DNSFilter relays config page
Create a directory in your Pi to hold everything

-- I used /containers/dnsfilter because I was planning on installing it via Docker

-- I created relay.reg and docker-compose.yml -- no clue if these are required for the binary (probably not) -- note that docker-compose.yml sample in their support page has an error in line 2 -- all lines need to be moved to the left by 2 spaces to be compatible with Docker -- not really an issue installing the binary though

Download the binary for Linux arm64
Install the binary in the same directory
Change to root user by using the "sudo su" command
Create a file called dnsfrelay.service as detailed here: https://help.dnsfilter.com/hc/en-us/articles/34628862150803-Auto-start-the-DNS-Relay-in-Linux

-- the config needs to be changed to your directory and also change relay-linux-amd64 to relay-linux-arm64

You can use nano to edit it or I just used macOS TextEdit, used scp to move it to my dnsfilter directory, and then while logged in as root user used mv to move it to /etc/systemd/system
run "systemctl start dnsfrelay"
run "systemctl enable dnsfrelay"

-- if you're not logged in as root user (sudo su) then it'll ask for password; if you're root it won't ask

run "sudo reboot" and see if it starts up

Hopefully DNSFilter will update the instructions to be more clear (or create a video). A lot more people would use relays if they were more clear with instructions. It's nice being able to look at what LAN IP requested the domain name.

I changed my relay.conf config to include a hostname (going to install on a second Pi for backup), VLANs, and to use DoT/TLS only.

Hopefully this helps get you up and running!

Eric Nix

I've previously suggested they just develop a hardware device and market it. I think there would be enough interest that it would help them with subscribers. Have a nice GUI to configure things.