DNS via ADSL modem/router doesn't play well with DHCP

[Robbo]

On Sat, 2005-10-08 at 15:14 +0100, Neil Woolford wrote:
> I have a Linksys ADSL2MUE modem, running into a WRT54G wireless/wired
> router.
> 
> Currently the modem is set as DHCP server and gateway between local
> network and internet.  The modem picks up all the appropriate
> information from the ISP, including the two static DNS addresses.  It
> then sets up attached computers via DHCP with itself as DHCP server,
> gateway address *and* DNS server address.  (All 192.168.1.1).
> 
> My laptop, running Windows 98SE, works flawlessly with this and has no
> trouble reaching the DNS via the local alias.  Winipcfg shows
> 192.168.1.1 as the DNS address.  So it appears that the modem/router is
> forwarding domain name queries from the windows machine to the real DNS
> addresses that it has obtained from the ISP and is then passing the
> results back.
> 
> Unfortunately this doesn't work under Ubuntu (Breezy preview, 5.10 at
> the moment but also previous versions).  Domain name queries to
> 192.168.1.1 just don't get answered.  Manually inserting the ISP
> provided DNS addresses via the System>~Administration>Network gui gets
> the system going again, but is overwritten the next time DHCP leases are
> renewed.
> 
> I have followed the instructions on Dennis Kaarsemaker's wiki page
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StaticDnsWithDhcp and set the system to prepend
> the static DNS addresses and not overwrite them, so I do have a working
> fix for the problem as far as my desktop machines go.
> 
> My question really is;  are others experiencing similar problems, or is
> the difficulty a peculiarity of the Linksys ADSL2MUE?  If the problem is
> widespread, can anything be done to fix it without editing config files?

I've seen this issue before with a friends router (forget the make),
after a while googling we found that the issue was a bug with the router
and not Ubuntu (even though the router ran linux!).  The solution was to
upgrade the router to the latest firmware.