How to Configure DNS Resolution in Debian Server

Edit the resolv.conf file. The file path is /etc/resolv.conf

Add your name server to the file by adding: “nameserver x.x.x.x” where x.x.x.x is the IPv4 address of the name server you want to use.

Skip to the bottom to copy and paste the exact commands. I went off on a tangent, this is why I am putting this up here.

So I had a very different reason for looking this up recently. I am running DELL EMC Switch Operating System named “OS10” on a enterprise switch. The switch is basically a x86 server with many high speed ports. This may be surprising if you are not i the networking world or not if you are into networking… but many enterprise switches with very advanced functions are running Linux. DELL EMC’s version called OS10 and its predecessor which has a rich history FTOS, and NOS v9.x are based on Debian server. There is even an open source version of this operating system and if you are interested in learning or tinkering with it, you do not even need to buy any hardware, you can run it in a virtual machine. It is called Openswitch OPX

https://github.com/open-switch

That link will get you started.

Getting back on track, the Linux subsystem is not prevalent for most users who are logging into the switch to configure it as DELL EMC has created their own “Cisco-esq” cli however, you can log in directly to the underlying Debian server and do some pretty incredible things. The beauty of the switch is that yes, it is x86 however it also has ASIC’s in the switch which is hardware specially made to run the network functions like routing and switching super fast.. it is not going through the CPU, but yo can use regular linux commands to configure the switch and OS10 takes care of the rest.

I am going to post the solution to the DNS issue at the top because I have slid way off track here.. but I was logged into the switch and set up the Management interface however apt update would not work because there was no DNS resolution so in order to fix this temporarily in my case I edited the /etc/resolv.conf file and added the name server in there: the commands were:

nano /etc/resolv.conf

Within that file I defined the nameserver I wanted to use, in my case it was 1.1.1

nameserver 1.1.1.1