What You'll Need

This tutorial walks you through setting up AdGuard Home on a Raspberry Pi so that every device on your home network benefits from DNS-level ad and tracker blocking — no browser extensions required.

  • A Raspberry Pi (any model with network access; Pi 3, Pi 4, or Pi Zero 2 W all work well)
  • Raspberry Pi OS installed (Lite is sufficient — no desktop needed)
  • Your Pi connected to your router via Ethernet (recommended) or Wi-Fi
  • SSH access to your Pi, or a connected keyboard and monitor
  • Your router's admin panel credentials

Step 1: Give Your Raspberry Pi a Static IP Address

AdGuard Home needs to be reachable at a predictable address. Assign a static IP via your router's DHCP reservation feature (preferred) or configure it directly on the Pi.

Via router (recommended): Log into your router admin panel, find the DHCP client list, locate your Pi's MAC address, and assign it a reserved IP (e.g., 192.168.1.50).

Step 2: Download and Install AdGuard Home

SSH into your Raspberry Pi and run the following commands:

curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome/master/scripts/install.sh | sh -s -- -v

This official install script will:

  1. Detect your system architecture (ARM for Raspberry Pi)
  2. Download the correct AdGuard Home binary
  3. Install it as a system service that starts automatically on boot

Once the script completes, you'll see a message indicating the service is running and pointing you to the setup wizard URL.

Step 3: Complete the Initial Setup Wizard

Open a browser on any device on your network and navigate to http://192.168.1.50:3000 (replace with your Pi's actual IP). The setup wizard will walk you through:

  1. Admin interface port: Default is 80. Change to 3000 or another port if port 80 is in use.
  2. DNS server port: Leave as 53 (standard DNS port).
  3. Create an admin username and password — use something strong and store it in your password manager.

After completing the wizard, you'll be redirected to the main AdGuard Home dashboard.

Step 4: Configure Upstream DNS Servers

AdGuard Home needs to forward queries it doesn't block to an upstream DNS resolver. Go to Settings → DNS Settings and set your upstream DNS. Good privacy-respecting options include:

  • https://dns.cloudflare.com/dns-query (Cloudflare DoH)
  • https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query (Quad9 DoH — includes malware blocking)
  • tls://1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare DoT)

Using DoH or DoT for upstream queries encrypts your DNS traffic between your Pi and the upstream resolver — an important privacy improvement over plain DNS.

Step 5: Enable Blocklists

Navigate to Filters → DNS Blocklists and click Add blocklist. Click Choose from the list to see AdGuard's curated selection. Recommended starting lists:

  • AdGuard DNS filter — comprehensive general-purpose list
  • EasyList — widely used ad blocking list
  • EasyPrivacy — tracking and analytics domains
  • Malware Domain List — known malicious domains

After adding lists, click Update now to download them. AdGuard Home will automatically update these lists on a schedule.

Step 6: Point Your Router to AdGuard Home

For network-wide protection, configure your router to use your Pi's IP as the DNS server it hands out to all devices via DHCP.

  1. Log into your router admin panel
  2. Find the DHCP settings (sometimes under LAN or Network settings)
  3. Set the Primary DNS to your Pi's static IP (e.g., 192.168.1.50)
  4. Set the Secondary DNS to a fallback like 1.1.1.1 (for if the Pi is unreachable)
  5. Save and restart your router

Devices will receive the new DNS settings when they renew their DHCP lease — you can speed this up by toggling Wi-Fi off and on, or running ipconfig /renew on Windows.

Step 7: Verify It's Working

Visit the AdGuard Home dashboard and check the Query Log. You should start seeing DNS queries from devices on your network flowing through. Visit a site known for heavy advertising — you should notice ads missing. The dashboard will show those blocked queries in real time.

Optional: Enable Client-Specific Rules

Under Settings → Client Settings, you can add individual devices by IP or MAC address and apply different filtering profiles. For example, apply stricter filtering on children's devices while allowing more through on your work laptop.

Congratulations — your entire home network now has DNS-level ad and tracker blocking running 24/7 from a low-power Raspberry Pi.