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Chiggins
Asked: 2011-02-03 17:30:36 +0800 CST

Permanently change DNS settings in Ubuntu Server

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So I changed the nameserver in the /etc/resolv.conf to the DNS server I want to use, but whenever the server gets restarted for whatever reason, it reverts back to the default DNS server. How can I change it so that it is a permanent change? Thanks.

linux ubuntu domain-name-system ubuntu-10.10

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Your resolv.conf is probably being overwritten by dhcp.

    Are you using DHCP? You can validate by hand editing your resolv.conf and then restarting your dhcp client.

    There are overrides for what DHCP provides for most OSes.

    I notice you tagged as Ubuntu. Try looking at /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf to hardcode your domain-name-server entries.

    Good luck.

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  2. I could be mistaken in a server environment, but Joel K is correct in that resolv.conf is being overwritten by DCHP. However the file /etc/network/interfaces can override an interface. if you're running a server, you should probably add all that info statically anyways

    Here's a basic article on interfaces

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  3. The proper place to change the dns entry is by creating an entry in /etc/network/interfaces. Here is an example:

    auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
   address 10.10.0.70
    network 10.10.0.0
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 10.10.0.254
    dns-nameservers 10.10.0.52

    When you reboot /etc/resolv.conf will be:

     # Generated by resolvconf 
 nameserver 10.10.0.52

    Note: In my lab just restarting the service network service did not set the netmask correctly; I had to reboot the system.

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  4. To get past DHCP hooks which overwrite the /etc/resolv.conf file on Ubuntu, you need to install the resolvconf package and manually edit its base configuration file with your appropriate nameserver or other DNS options in order to make changes permanent to system-wide resolv.conf file. You can use this short tutorial in order to permanently populate resolv.conf file on Ubuntu with your custom DNS entries http://www.bytelinux.com/make-permanent-changes-to-resolv-conf-file-on-ubuntu/

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