How do i use the blocklist without having to manually update the URL everytime an update is made to the list?

[jobax999]

I'm utilizing the pornography blocklist with my pihole setup and initially it worked quite well. Then after a few days I noticed it stopped blocking restricted domains. I looked into it a bit and what I think is happening is everytime there's an update made to the list, the name of the file changes because of the naming convention used (specifically the random hash part). When this happens, the URL that I was using as the source of the blocklist in my pihole setup is no longer valid. Even the URL provided in this repo's wiki under section 7 "07 Pi‐Hole for Domain Blocking" is no longer valid.

Is there a way for me to use this blocklist without having to manually update the blocklist URL everytime there's an update made to the file?

[CodeAlDente]

Hi @jobax999! Thanks for taking the time to report this. 😄
I’ve updated the article to explain how to mirror the list locally into a static file. Please try and let me know.

[jobax999]

Hi @jobax999! Thanks for taking the time to report this. 😄 I’ve updated the article to explain how to mirror the list locally into a static file. Please try and let me know.

Thank you so much for the fast reply and the very clear and thorough writeup. I followed your instructions exactly as described and everything looks good so far. I'll keep an eye on it periodically to make sure it stays working. One question I had was in order for the cronjob to run every night, does my SSH connection to the pihole server need to stay open?

[CodeAlDente]

You’re very welcome. Glad to hear everything is working so far! 🙂

Your SSH connection does not need to stay open. The cron job runs directly on the system hosting Pi-hole (for example a Raspberry Pi, home server, VM, or VPS) and is completely independent of your SSH session. As long as the Pi-hole host is powered on at the scheduled time, the job will run automatically.