How do I switch my DNS resolvers away from Google?

March 27, 2017 25.8k views
DNS DigitalOcean FAQ Linux Basics Linux Commands Miscellaneous Networking CentOS Debian Ubuntu Ubuntu 16.04
dwilkin
By:
dwilkin

Recently many users have had issues with Google's DNS resolution, which have really highlighted the need for a distributed internet! With that in mind, I wanted to write up a guide on how to update your DNS resolvers to a custom DNS provider. We'll use OpenDNS for this guide, but you can find several options here:

https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062

Temporary fix:

Don't know if you want to switch away from Google, but need to get back up and running? There's a file on your server called: 

/etc/resolv.conf

Which should look something like this:

nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4

If you change those lines to the OpenDNS resolver IPs:

nameserver 208.67.222.222 
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Then you're done! That will direct all of your DNS resolution requests to OpenDNS until your next reboot, when resolv.conf is regenerated based on your networking configuration.

Permanent fix:

So how do you edit that networking configuration? Well the syntax is the same, but the location differs based on your distribution.

Ubuntu/Debian

First check for this file and make changes here:

/etc/network/interfaces.d/50-cloud-init.cfg

But on some older versions that won't exist, so you can just make changes here:

/etc/network/interfaces

The current settings should look something like this:

dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

You can update them with the OpenDNS resolvers to look like this:

dns-nameservers 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220

Then restart networking with:

sudo systemctl restart network.service

Or simply reboot your Droplet to have those changes take effect.

CentOS/RHEL

This can all be managed at:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

The current settings should look something like this:

DNS1=8.8.8.8
DNS2=8.8.4.4

You can update them with the OpenDNS resolvers to look like this:

DNS1=208.67.222.222 
DNS2=208.67.220.220

Then restart networking with:

sudo systemctl restart network.service

Or simply reboot your Droplet to have those changes take effect.

I hope that's helpful! If you're having a DNS issue that changing your resolvers doesn't... ahem... resolve... Then please feel free to open a ticket so we can take a look:

https://cloud.digitalocean.com/support/tickets/new

And don't hesitate to post your questions below :)

Regards,
Darian
Platform Support Advocate

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4 Answers
jtittle1 March 28, 2017

@dwilkin

Since the DigitalOcean Team has a presence here in the community and posts such as this, as well as those previous, apply to such a large base, it might be worth having them stick out a little more.

To those of us who like to help others in the community, they simply look like every other question. If there was a tag next to the post title, some color variation (different link color), or separation (such as making the thread sticky for X or XX days / week(s)) -- or a combination of all three -- I think that'd be far more helpful in ensuring that others are able to identify such posts.

I know there's a search function, but even when searching, it still looks like every other thread :-).

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  • dwilkin MOD March 28, 2017

    I agree @jtittle! We're looking into that, but we've only just started trying out these "mini-blog" posts for issues with a clear procedural fix, so we're still doing information gathering right now.

    I certainly hope we can make them stand out in the future! Thanks for the feedback :)

tinchopy March 28, 2017

This worked for my droplet, thank you very much!

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  • dwilkin MOD March 28, 2017

    That's great to hear! Please don't hesitate to share with others who may have the same problem :)

  • thephotographyblog June 16, 2018

    What problem is this trying to fix? I'm using Google's DNS and it seems to be working fine...

    My Pagespeed speed scores are through the roof.

justChris September 2, 2017

My /etc/network/interfaces.d/50-cloud-init.cfg file uses IPv6 addresses in the DNS settings:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
    dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 2001:4860:4860::8844 2001:4860:4860::8888

Does OpenDNS support these types of addresses as an alternative to Google?

Reply
jrodrigues April 28, 2017

Is there a way, for ubuntu-based hosts, to set nameservers in the cloud-init data at droplet creation time?

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