Pi-hole MCP Server

pihole-mcp

A production-grade MCP server for Pi-hole v6.

82 tools (84 with a second instance) | 9 prompts | 5 resources | Multi-instance + sync | Read-only mode + toolsets | Single Go binary

Gives AI assistants full control over your Pi-hole instance: DNS blocking, domain management, query analysis, statistics, network devices, DHCP, and system administration. Compatible with the Pi-hole v6 REST API.

Why this one

• Run it locked down. PIHOLE_READ_ONLY=true exposes only the tools that cannot change anything, enforced on every call, not just the tool list a client happens to cache. PIHOLE_TOOLSETS narrows further to just the families you need, so a client asking "what can I use" gets a smaller, cheaper answer.
• 82 tools (84 once a second Pi-hole is configured) covering roughly 95% of the Pi-hole v6 REST API, including domains, lists, groups, clients, DHCP, network, the query log, configuration, local DNS records, teleporter backup and restore, and session management.
• Multi-instance diff and sync. Compare two Pi-holes and see exactly what differs, or reconcile one onto the other with a dry-run plan and a confirm token before anything is written.
• Releases are signed and attested, not just built. Every archive and container image carries a keyless cosign signature, an SPDX SBOM and SLSA build provenance, and SECURITY.md has the one-line command to check each.
• Listed in the official [MCP Registry](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/) as io.github.hexamatic/pihole-mcp, installable by name from any client that supports registry install.
• Shipped nine releases in five months since launch, each with real release notes describing what changed and why, not a commit-hash dump.

Quick Start

Most MCP clients use the same configuration format. Add this to your client's config:

{

"mcpServers": { "pihole": { "command": "pihole-mcp", "env": { "PIHOLE_URL": "http://192.168.1.2", "PIHOLE_PASSWORD": "your-password" } } } }

Then install the binary via one of the methods below.

What you can ask

The whole point is natural language, not tool names. A few examples of what to actually type:

Set PIHOLE_READ_ONLY=true first if you want to ask questions without any risk of something being changed. See Scoping the tool surface.

Installation

MCP Registry

pihole-mcp is listed in the official MCP Registry as:

io.github.hexamatic/pihole-mcp

Clients that support registry install can add it by that name and will prompt for PIHOLE_URL and PIHOLE_PASSWORD. The listing points at the ghcr.io image, so the client needs a working Docker.

Homebrew

brew install hexamatic/tap/pihole-mcp

Installs on both macOS and Linux (Homebrew on Linux). On macOS the cask clears the quarantine attribute during install, so the binary runs without a Gatekeeper prompt. From v0.10.0 the macOS binaries need macOS 13 Ventura or later; v0.9.0 is the last release that runs on macOS 12.

Scoop (Windows)

scoop bucket add hexamatic https://github.com/hexamatic/scoop-bucket

scoop install pihole-mcp

Go Install

go install github.com/hexamatic/pihole-mcp/cmd/pihole-mcp@latest

Docker

docker pull ghcr.io/hexamatic/pihole-mcp:latest

Linux Packages

.deb and .rpm packages for Debian-based (Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi OS) and RPM-based (Fedora, RHEL) distributions are available on the Releases page.

# Debian / Ubuntu / Raspberry Pi OS

sudo dpkg -i pihole-mcp_X.Y.Z_linux_amd64.deb

Fedora / RHEL / CentOS

sudo rpm -i pihole-mcp_X.Y.Z_linux_amd64.rpm

Binary Download

Pre-built binaries for Linux, macOS 13 or later, and Windows (amd64 and arm64) are available on the Releases page.

Releases are checksummed, signed with keyless cosign, and ship SPDX SBOMs and SLSA build provenance. See SECURITY.md for the verification commands.

Check your setup

Once installed and configured, run the server directly with -check. It loads the configuration, contacts every Pi-hole you have configured, and reports each one by name:

PIHOLE_URL=http://192.168.1.2 PIHOLE_PASSWORD=your-password pihole-mcp -check

pihole-mcp 0.10.0

PASS primary (http://192.168.1.2) core v6.5, FTL v6.8

All 1 instance(s) reachable and authenticated.

It exits non-zero if any instance fails, and prints what to change. It also warns when a Pi-hole runs an FTL release affected by published security advisories, naming the release that fixes them. Worth running before you wire the server into a client: most clients hide the server's output, so a bad URL or password looks the same as a server that never started.

Configuration

Application passwords are recommended for automation: they bypass TOTP 2FA and can be revoked independently.

PIHOLE_HTTP_AUTH_TOKEN, PIHOLE_HTTP_AUTH_TOKEN_FILE, PIHOLE_RATE_LIMIT, PIHOLE_ALLOWED_ORIGINS and PIHOLE_TRUSTED_PROXIES only apply to the http and sse transports; stdio is a single-process, single-user channel by definition and isn't gated. See Security before exposing either transport beyond loopback.

Scoping the tool surface

By default the server offers every tool, including 34 that change Pi-hole and 27 that are destructive. Two variables narrow that.

PIHOLE_READ_ONLY=true exposes only tools that cannot change anything, on Pi-hole or on the host the server runs on, so it leaves out pihole_teleporter_export, which writes a file. Write tools are absent from tools/list and rejected if called anyway, so a client working from a cached listing cannot reach one either.

PIHOLE_READ_ONLY=true    # 48 tools instead of 82

PIHOLE_TOOLSETS selects which families of tools exist at all, which is worth doing on its own because tools/list is a cost paid in every conversation:

PIHOLE_TOOLSETS=dashboard,domains,lists    # blocklist curation, and nothing else

PIHOLE_TOOLSETS=all # the default, stated explicitly

The two intersect, and read-only always wins. PIHOLE_READ_ONLY=true with PIHOLE_TOOLSETS=dns,stats gives the 14 tools that are in those toolsets *and* read-only.

The toolset names, what each contains and how many tools it holds are in docs/TOOLS.md, generated from the same table the server filters with. An unknown name fails at startup and lists every valid one; run pihole-mcp -check to see it, along with how many tools your configuration actually exposes:

scope: read-only=true, toolsets=dns,stats  14 of 82 tools exposed

A published toolset name is never removed, renamed or narrowed. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full promise.

Multiple instances

To manage more than one Pi-hole, configure numbered instances instead of PIHOLE_URL/PIHOLE_PASSWORD:

| PIHOLE_1_NAME, PIHOLE_2_NAME, … | No | Fri