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Query database

Pi-hole FTLDNS uses the well-known relational database management system SQLite3 as its long-term storage of query data. In contrast to many other database management solutions, FTLDNS does not need a server database engine as the database engine is directly embedded in FTLDNS. It seems an obvious choice as it is probably the most widely deployed database engine - it is used today by several widespread web browsers, operating systems, and embedded systems (such as mobile phones), among others. Hence, it is rich in supported platforms and offered features. SQLite implements most of the SQL-92 standard for SQL and can be used for high-level queries.

The long-term query database was the first database that was added to the Pi-hole project. We update this database periodically and on the exit of FTLDNS (triggered e.g. by a service pihole-FTL restart). The updating frequency can be controlled by the parameter DBINTERVAL and defaults to once per minute. We think this interval is sufficient to protect against data losses due to power failure events. FTLDNS needs the database to populate its internal history of the most recent 24 hours. If the database is disabled, FTLDNS will show an empty query history after a restart.

The location of the database can be configured by the config parameter DBFILE. It defaults to /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db. If the given file does not exist, FTLDNS will create a new (empty) database file.

Another way of controlling the size of the long-term database is by setting a maximum age for log queries to keep using the config parameter MAXDBDAYS. It defaults to 365 days, i.e. queries that are older than one year get periodically removed to limit the growth of the long-term database file.

The config parameter DBIMPORT controls whether FTL loads information from the database on startup. It needs to do this to populate the internal data structure with the most recent history. However, as importing from the database on disk can delay FTL on very large deploys, it can be disabled using this option.


Split database

You can split your long-term database by periodically rotating the database file (do this only when pihole-FTL is not running). The individual database contents can easily be merged when required. This could be implemented by running a monthly cron job such as:

sudo service pihole-FTL stop
sudo mv /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db /media/backup/pihole-FTL_$(date +"%m-%y").db
sudo service pihole-FTL start

Note that DNS resolution will not be available as long as pihole-FTL is stopped.

Backup database

The database can be backed up while FTL is running when using the SQLite3 Online backup method, e.g.,

sqlite3 /etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db ".backup /home/pi/pihole-FTL.db.backup"

will create /home/pi/pihole-FTL.db.backup which is a copy of your long-term database.


The long-term database contains several tables:

Query Table

Label Type Allowed to by empty Content
id integer No autoincrement ID for the table, only used by SQLite3, not by FTLDNS
timestamp integer No Unix timestamp when this query arrived at FTLDNS (used as index)
type integer No Type of this query (see Supported query types)
status integer No How was this query handled by FTLDNS? (see Supported status types)
domain text No Requested domain
client text No Requesting client (IP address)
forward text Yes Forward destination used for this query (only set if status == 2)
additional_info blob Yes Data-dependent content, see below
reply_type integer Yes Type of the reply for this query (see Supported reply types)
reply_time real Yes Seconds it took until the final reply was received
dnssec integer Yes Type of the DNSSEC status for this query (see DNSSEC status)

The queries VIEW is dynamically generated from the data actually stored in the query_storage table and the linking tables domain_by_id, client_by_id, forward_by_id, and addinfo_by_id (see below). The table query_storage will contains integer IDs pointing to the respective entries of the linking tables to save space and make searching the database faster. If you haven't upgraded for some time, the table may still contain strings instead of integer IDs.

Data-dependent additional_info field

The content and type of the additional_info row depends on the status of the given query. For many queries, this field is empty. You should, however, not rely on this field being empty as we may add content of any type for other status types in future releases.

Query blocked due to a CNAME inspection (status 9, 10, 11)

If a query was blocked due to a CNAME inspection (status 9, 10, 11), this field contains the domain which was the reason for blocking the entire CNAME chain (text).

Query influenced by a black- or whitelist entry

If a query was influenced by a black- or whitelist entry, this field contains the ID of the corresponding entry in the domainlist table.

Counters table

This table contains counter values integrated over the entire lifetime of the table

Label Type Allowed to by empty Content
id integer No ID for the table used to select a counter (see below)
value integer No Value of a given counter
ID Interpretation
0 Total number of queries
1 Total number of blocked queries

FTL table

The FTL table contains some data used by FTLDNS for determining which queries to save to the database. This table does not contain any entries of general interest.

Supported query types

ID Resource Record (a.k.a. query type)
1 A
2 AAAA
3 ANY
4 SRV
5 SOA
6 PTR
7 TXT
8 NAPTR
9 MX
10 DS
11 RRSIG
12 DNSKEY
13 NS
14 OTHER (any query type not covered elsewhere, but see note below)
15 SVCB
16 HTTPS

Any other query type will be stored with an offset of 100, i.e., TYPE66 will be stored as 166 in the database (see pi-hole/FTL #1013). This is done to allow for future extensions of the query type list without having to change the database schema. The OTHER query type is deprecated since Pi-hole FTL v5.4 (released Jan 2021) and not used anymore. It is kept for backwards compatibility. Note that OTHER is still used for the regex extension querytype= filter and used for all queries not covered by the above list.

Supported status types

ID Status Details
0 Unknown Unknown status (not yet known)
1 Blocked Domain contained in gravity database
2 Allowed Forwarded
3 Allowed Replied from cache
4 Blocked Domain matched by a regex blacklist filter
5 Blocked Domain contained in exact blacklist
6 Blocked By upstream server (known blocking page IP address)
7 Blocked By upstream server (0.0.0.0 or ::)
8 Blocked By upstream server (NXDOMAIN with RA bit unset)
9 Blocked Domain contained in gravity database
Blocked during deep CNAME inspection
10 Blocked Domain matched by a regex blacklist filter
Blocked during deep CNAME inspection
11 Blocked Domain contained in exact blacklist
Blocked during deep CNAME inspection
12 Allowed Retried query
13 Allowed Retried but ignored query (this may happen during ongoing DNSSEC validation)
14 Allowed Already forwarded, not forwarding again
15 Blocked Blocked (database is busy)
How these queries are handled can be configured
16 Blocked Blocked (special domain)
E.g. Mozilla's canary domain and Apple's Private Relay domains
Handling can be configured
17 Allowed ✅⌛ Replied from stale cache

Supported reply types

ID Reply type is
0 unknown (no reply so far)
1 NODATA
2 NXDOMAIN
3 CNAME
4 a valid IP record
5 DOMAIN
6 RRNAME
7 SERVFAIL
8 REFUSED
9 NOTIMP
10 OTHER
11 DNSSEC
12 NONE (query was dropped intentionally)
13 BLOB (binary data)

DNSSEC status

ID DNSSEC status is
0 unknown
1 SECURE
2 INSECURE
3 BOGUS
4 ABANDONED

Linking tables

The queries VIEW reads repeating properties from linked tables to reduce both database size and search complexity. These linking tables, domain_by_id, client_by_id, forward_by_id, and addinfo_by_id all have a similar structure:

domain_by_id

Label Type Allowed to by empty Content
id integer No ID of the entry. Used by query_storage
domain text No Domain name

client_by_id

Label Type Allowed to by empty Content
id integer No ID of the entry. Used by query_storage
ip text No Client IP address
name text Yes Client host name

forward_by_id

Label Type Allowed to by empty Content
id integer No ID of the entry. Used by query_storage
forward text No Upstream server identifier (<ipaddr>#<port>)

addinfo_by_id

Label Type Allowed to by empty Content
id integer No ID of the entry. Used by query_storage
type integer No Type of the content field
content blob No Type-dependent content

Valid type IDs are currently

  • ADDINFO_CNAME_DOMAIN = 1 - content is a string (the related CNAME)
  • ADDINFO_DOMAIN_ID = 2 - content is an integer (ID pointing to a domain in the domainlist table)

Example for interaction with the long-term query database

In addition to the interactions the Pi-hole database API offers, you can also run your own SQL commands against the database. If you want to obtain the three most queries domains for all time, you could use

sqlite3 "/etc/pihole/pihole-FTL.db" "SELECT domain,count(domain) FROM queries WHERE (STATUS == 2 OR STATUS == 3) GROUP BY domain ORDER BY count(domain) DESC LIMIT 3"

which would return something like

discourse.pi-hole.net|421095
www.pi-hole.net|132483
posteo.de|130243

showing the domain and the number of times it was found in the long-term database. Note that such a request might take a very long time for computation as the entire history of queries has to be processed for this.


Last update: February 6, 2023