---
id: fae8f322-d5c6-4ffb-9735-49e9f46940e8
type: solution
title: "Pi-hole v6 TOML update approach using pure shell/sed/awk"
tags: [pihole, v6, toml, shell, sed, awk, solution]
importance: 0.6
confidence: 0.8
created: "2026-02-07T15:12:33.508157+00:00"
updated: "2026-02-07T15:12:33.508157+00:00"
relations:
  - target: dc3ed16c-18db-4011-b866-3730316cd68d
    type: SOLVES
    direction: outgoing
    strength: 0.5
---

## Approach for updating Pi-hole v6 pihole.toml without python/perl

**Constraint:** Pi-hole container only has sh, sed, awk, grep

**Method 1: Extract-Replace-Merge**
1. Extract everything before 'hosts = [' line
2. Write new hosts array
3. Extract everything after matching ']' 
4. Concatenate all parts

**Shell commands:**
# Before hosts array
sed -n '1,/^[[:space:]]*hosts[[:space:]]*=/p' pihole.toml | head -n -1 > part1.toml

# New hosts array  
cat >> part1.toml <<EOF
  hosts = [
    "10.10.0.16 domain1.com",
    "10.10.0.16 domain2.com"
  ]
EOF

# After hosts array (skip until first ] after hosts =)
awk '/^[[:space:]]*hosts[[:space:]]*=/,/\]/ {found=1; next} found {print}' pihole.toml >> part1.toml

# Replace original
mv part1.toml pihole.toml

**Method 2: Line-by-line state machine with awk**
awk '
BEGIN { in_hosts=0; done=0 }
/^[[:space:]]*hosts[[:space:]]*=/ && !done {
  print "  hosts = ["
  print "    \"10.10.0.16 domain1.com\","
  print "    \"10.10.0.16 domain2.com\""  
  print "  ]"
  in_hosts=1
  done=1
  next
}
in_hosts && /\]/ { in_hosts=0; next }
!in_hosts { print }
' pihole.toml

**Implementation in script:**
- Build TOML_HOSTS variable with proper escaping
- Inject into awk/sed command
- Execute via docker exec pihole sh -c

**Test first on primary, then secondary**