Pi-hole Youtube ad blocking

filter-youtube-domains.sh

#!/bin/sh
# This script will fetch the Googlevideo ad domains and append them to the Pi-hole block list.
# Run this script daily with a cron job (don't forget to chmod +x)
# More info here: https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/how-do-i-block-ads-on-youtube/253/136

# File to store the YT ad domains
FILE=/etc/pihole/youtube.hosts

# Fetch the list of domains, remove the ip's and save them
curl 'https://api.hackertarget.com/hostsearch/?q=googlevideo.com' \
| awk -F, 'NR>1{print $1}' \
| grep -vE "redirector|manifest" > $FILE

# Replace r*.sn*.googlevideo.com URLs to r*---sn-*.googlevideo.com
# and add those to the list too
cat $FILE | sed -r 's/(^r[[:digit:]]+)(\.)(sn)/\1---\3-/' >> $FILE

# Scan log file for previously accessed domains
grep '^r.*googlevideo\.com' /var/log/pihole*.log \
| awk '{print $8}' \
| grep -vE "redirector|manifest" \
| sort | uniq >> $FILE

# Add to Pi-hole adlists if it's not there already
if ! grep $FILE < /etc/pihole/adlists.list; then echo "file://$FILE" >> /etc/pihole/adlists.list; fi;

Im running pih-hole v5.2.2 and I seem to be missing something as the AdList is not updating with the YouTube hosts (domains).

I have the script in my /etc/pihole folder as per above revised by @dev-2-4-h last post here

It Successfully creates a youtube.hosts file in the /etc/pihole folder
It Successfull call pihole -g and the update appears to run with success into GravityDB, but no new domains are added.

Looking at the script above I see no obvious way the youtube.hosts file is added to Pi-Hole automatically. Also checked the gravity.sh script Pi-Hole uses when executes the pihole -g command and that doesnt appear to look for .hosts files on updating GravityDB.

Therefore what am I missing, how does pihole -g suppose to add the contents of the auto-generated youtube.hosts file to Pi-Hole?

Cleaned up the script a little bit by replacing the curl/awk/grep/sed sequence with just curl and sed.

#!/bin/sh
# More info here: https:#discourse.pi-hole.net/t/how-do-i-block-ads-on-youtube/253/136
# File to store the YT ad domains
FILE=/etc/pihole/youtube.hosts

# Fetch the list of domains, remove the ip's and save them
curl 'https://api.hackertarget.com/hostsearch/?q=googlevideo.com' | \
sed -E '1d;/redirector|manifest/d;s/(^r[0-9]+)\.(sn)(.*)(,.*)/\1---\2-\3/' > $FILE

# Scan log file for previously accessed domains
grep '^r.*googlevideo\.com' /var/log/pihole*.log \
| awk '{print $8}' \
| grep -vE "redirector|manifest" \
| sort | uniq >> $FILE

# Update Gravity
pihole -g

maybe this is neccesary to append the youtube domains list to the other already validated, works for me .

bash -c 'cat youtube.hosts >> list.1.raw.githubusercontent.com.domains'

i believe this would be a solution.
`
FILE=/etc/pihole/youtube.hosts

curl 'https://api.hackertarget.com/hostsearch/?q=googlevideo.com'
| awk -F, 'NR>1{print $1}'
| grep -vE "redirector|manifest" > $FILE

sed -i $FILE -re 's/(^r[[:digit:]]+)(.)(sn)/\1---\3-/'

grep '^r.googlevideo.com' /var/log/pihole.log
| awk '{print $8}'
| grep -vE "redirector|manifest"
| sort | uniq >> $FILE

bash -c 'cat /etc/pihole/youtube.hosts >> list.1.raw.githubusercontent.com.domains'

pihole -g`

An alternative may be to add the following regex on the blacklist:

^r.+\.googlevideo.com$

Seems to work for me locally. The ad segments still appear but it's just a spinner for 5 seconds then 'Skip Ads' appear.

rjhancock,

Thanks for the idea, I just tried it cause I didn't understand it. After adding the regex ^r.+.googlevideo.com$
all youtube movies are blocked....not one runs.
How local did you mean?

Yea, I removed it last night as it looks like about half the videos are blocked if not more. Bad idea. So I wonder if there is a different pattern that might work instead.