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nitins
Asked: 2010-12-24 22:31:06 +0800 CST

Number of nameserver entries in resolv.conf

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How many nameserver entries can I give in /etc/resolv.conf? I have given our ISP's 2 nameserver entries as first and second. But since they have issues sometimes, I would like to add Google public nameserver enry. Does a 3rd & 4th entry make any difference?

This is the resolv.conf on our proxy(squid) server. I understand that Squid uses /etc/resolv.conf for name resolution.

linux resolv.conf squid

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Actually, you're only allowed three server entries in /etc/resolv.conf.

    See: http://linux.die.net/man/5/resolv.conf

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  2. You can effectively have as many namservers as you want. Just remember that resolution will fail on the first before going to the second, and so on. It will be some time before name resolution attempts make it to the third and fourth nameservers.

    Edit: As explained in the comments on this answer, I was wrong. You're limited to three nameservers by default, and this appears to be a compilation-time option (so not easy to change during runtime).

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