Static DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf

It's an old problem: NetworkManager overwrites /etc/resolv.conf with each connection, forcing one to use the local ISP's crappy DNS servers instead of one's tried-and-true public DNS servers.

The fixes for this are legion: chattr resolv.conf, disable dhclient, replace NetworkManager.

It turns out that dhclient can be configured to include specified DNS servers (up to twp before a warning is displayed) in the resolv.conf.

Simply add the following line to /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf :

prepend domain-name-servers 4.2.2.1, 4.2.2.4;                

Obviously, replace 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.4 with whatever name servers are desired. The semicolon, by the way, is extremely important -- don't leave it out.

DNS

DNS timeouts have been pretty bad lately; decided to take action and make resolve.conf actually be usable. Of course, it gets overwritten every time DHCP is used to configure an interface, so the name servers have to be added to dhclient.conf .

There are quite a lot of reliable servers to choose from:

OpenDNS
TechFAQ public dns server list
dnsserverlist.org
dnsserverlist.org organized by round trip time

The last two are particularly useful: dnsserverlist.org recommends three DNS servers based on your current IP, and provides an option for sorting their list by round-trip-time.

"Permanent" DNS servers can be added by editing /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf and adding 'prepend domain-name-servers' lines:

prepend domain-name-servers 216.224.112.14;
prepend domain-name-servers 67.198.198.213;
prepend domain-name-servers 69.111.95.106 ;
prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.222.222;
prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.220.220;
prepend domain-name-servers 4.2.2.1;
prepend domain-name-servers 4.2.2.2;
prepend domain-name-servers 151.197.0.38;
prepend domain-name-servers 151.202.0.84;
prepend domain-name-servers 151.203.0.84;

Remember to list these in reverse-order: the last server prepended will be the first line in resolv.conf.

The ultimate solution, of course, is to set up a local caching DNS server.