Hello, I think you would prefer to connect via internal dns names rather than static IPs. I have a slightly similar setup with docker compose creating a network for my apps.

Docker compose that creates the network: https://github.com/HugoKlepsch/reverse-proxy-network/blob/master/docker-compose.yaml

Here I run my app and set the hostname. Note this app is on two docker networks, but for access from nginx it is on the “reverse_proxy” network: https://github.com/HugoKlepsch/buzz/blob/b160aab1649819acacb80964d7b19d7beb1712f6/docker-compose.yaml#L21

This compose is running nginx as a reverse proxy for my local apps. It uses the reverse proxy network: https://github.com/HugoKlepsch/reverse-proxy/blob/675e11d3d8a98e4692c6e6087de4428ac8d1ece8/docker-compose.yaml#L4

Here is a configuration file where I tell nginx where to find one of my apps on the reverse proxy docker network. Note the name references the name of the app and the docker network: https://github.com/HugoKlepsch/reverse-proxy/blob/675e11d3d8a98e4692c6e6087de4428ac8d1ece8/config/conf.d/sites-available/buzz.conf#L2

I feel like I'm missing something here. I've never needed to worry about docker container IPs.

I wonder why you want them to have fixed IPs. I guess I want to understand the problem it would solve.

If all you want to do is have the other containers use the pihole as DNS.. they'd already be doing so if the server is using it as the DNS server.

At worst you'd need to provide

dns:
  - <server IP where pihole is>

property to the services.

I think what you’re describing can be accomplished with docker-compose’s depends_on option. I’m not certain how it works across compose files, but that would be the first place I’d look.

Maybe not exactly what you are looking for but with Podman you can run any Docker container and control it via normal Systemd service files including all the fine grained control options that come with that.