Can't apt-get update, "temporary failure resolving mirrors.digitalocean.com".

July 14, 2017 5.8k views
DigitalOcean DNS Debian
oax9c
By:
oax9c

Hey, I'm using a newly rebuilt Debian 9 image and I can't successfully execute apt-get update. I've seen several similar questions asked here, none helped me. I can ping to google.com or other websites, even mirrors.digitalocean.com; 8.8.8.8 is present in my /etc/resolv.conf, but still, right after having rebuilt the droplet, ssh-ed into it and changed the root password, the command doesn't work.

Here's the exact error message I get:

root@whatever:~# apt-get update
Err:1 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/debian stretch InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
Err:2 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/debian stretch/updates InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
Err:3 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/debian stretch-updates InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/debian/dists/stretch/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/debian/dists/stretch/updates/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/debian/dists/stretch-updates/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
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6 Answers
t0d0r January 12, 2018

Seems that /etc/resolv.conf have wrong permissions

-rw-rw---- 1 root root 19 Jan 11 18:16 /etc/resolv.conf

this file must have +r for all users, execute following command to fix them:

chmod 644 /etc/resolv.conf

the result must be:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19 Jan 11 18:16 /etc/resolv.conf
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hansen July 14, 2017

Hi @oax9c

I'm not seeing a problem right now. Could you try again?
I'm trying from servers in NYC1, NYC3, FRA1 and AMS2, and all resolves correctly.
I have seen this one time before, but several months ago - I couldn't connect for 10min.

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  • oax9c July 14, 2017

    I'm in FRA1 and still getting the error. Perhaps I'll wait until tomorrow to see if anything changes...

    • hansen July 14, 2017

      @oax9c What do you get if you run this:

      dig mirrors.digitalocean.com A +short && dig mirrors.digitalocean.com AAAA +short

      I get the following from FRA1 (note that your order might differ):

      198.199.99.226
192.241.164.26
95.85.0.50
103.253.144.50
2400:6180:0:1::10
2604:a880:0:1::4
2604:a880:1:1::4
2a03:b0c0:0:1::4

      EDIT:
      And I'm using these DNS servers on that server:

      nameserver 2001:4860:4860::8844
nameserver 2001:4860:4860::8888
nameserver 8.8.8.8
      • oax9c July 14, 2017

        I can't execute this command since I cannot install any package; however trying this with Ubuntu 17.04 gave me these addresses, although in a different order.

        I also tried to apt-get update and install zsh in Ubuntu, it failed because of 404 errors...

bengezginci August 15, 2017

i have same problem too... ping http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/debian/ Name or service not known, but ping google.com is working.... i think digitalocean droplet can not access himself files...

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infoad8a40054dfc07d34a6399 August 23, 2017

Also seeing this issue with a fresh install from Debian 9. Rebuilding with Debian 8 works just fine (even after upgrading it to 9!).

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grahamwideman October 15, 2018
[deleted]
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kvantakala November 7, 2018

I just had this same problem and for me it was because I set up a firewall to limit all incoming & outgoing traffic to just my IP. Removing that firewall fixed the issue.

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