StaticDnsWithDhcp

Parent: Internet and Networking

The default setup of Ubuntu does not make it easy to use static DNS servers while using DHCP. If you use the standard ubuntu way of networking (ifupdown), you can edit /etc/network/interfaces

In that file you find the entry for your interface. If your interface is eth0, then look for the following lines:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Add one line, so it looks like:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
dns-nameservers ip.address.of.nameserver

Run

sudo invoke-rc.d networking restart

To make the changes effective

If you do not use ifupdown, you need to edit /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf

Find the lines

#prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;
request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
        domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name,
        netbios-name-servers, netbios-scope;

And change them to

prepend domain-name-servers 1.2.3.4, 1.2.3.5;
request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
        domain-name, host-name,
        netbios-name-servers, netbios-scope;

Replace 1.2.3.4 and 1.2.3.5 with the addresses of your DNS servers.

Run

sudo invoke-rc.d networking restart

To make the changes effective:

Ubuntu Documentation