Network Parental Controls with Pi-hole Groups
Apply stricter filtering only to the kids' devices — and pause social media at bedtime.
LevelTechnician
Time40 min
Est. cost~$28
Steps5
Pi-hole's group management lets you assign devices to groups with different blocklists. Combined with a scheduled script, you can turn categories off and on at set hours.
⚠ SAFETY
DNS filtering is easy to bypass with mobile data or encrypted DNS. Pair it with device-level parental controls and conversations.
DNS filtering is easy to bypass with mobile data or encrypted DNS. Pair it with device-level parental controls and conversations.
Mission steps
Start with Pi-hole
Complete the Pi-hole guide and give kids' devices fixed IPs in your router.
Create a Kids group
Group Management → Groups → add Kids.
Add the devices
Group Management → Clients → add each device by IP or MAC and assign the Kids group.
Add a stricter list
Add a family-safe blocklist and enable it only for the Kids group.
Schedule bedtime
Add a domain group for social and gaming sites and enable or disable it with cron and the pihole command.
Questions
Will it block YouTube?
You can block the YouTube domains for the Kids group entirely, but not individual videos.