resolv.conf issue

[Henk Koster]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:57:28 -0600, Roger Haxton wrote:

> I use VPN frequently from my laptop where I currently run Breezy.  I have
> one issue that I have turned into two issues to try to resolve the first
> issue. the main issue is that when I connect to my VPN either through
> Cisco's VPN client or through vpnc, my Cisco 3005 VPN concentrator is
> handing out DNS servers for my network at work.  I know that the
> /etc/resolv.conf is getting changed at least temporarily because I've kept
> a running check on the file and it does get changed to my work DNS servers
> right after I connect my VPN. However, shortly thereafter, it changes back
> to the DNS servers handed out via DHCP on my local network.  When I was
> running SuSE 9.3 and 10 on my laptop this didn't happen.  When I connected
> to the VPN my DNS servers changed to the ones from my work network; when I
> changed back, they changed back to the ones that I had gotten from DHCP on
> my local network.
> 
> Now, SuSE uses dhcpcd rather than dhclient to obtain DHCP from networks. 
> So, I thought I'd uninstall dhclient3 from my laptop and install dhcpcd. 
> I did this because when using dhclient3 to gain my DHCP address if I edit
> /etc/resolv.conf manually after connecting the VPN, it changes it back to
> the ones handed out by my DHCP server here at the house.
> 
> I'd be happy to go back to dhclient3, but I need to stop my
> /etc/resolv.conf from changing when I get new DNS servers from my VPN.
> Actually, that is not entirely accurate.  It DOES change my DNS search
> domain to the one for my work network, just not the nameservers.  Just for
> grins, I tried a profile to my old concentrator, and that actually changed
> /etc/resolv.conf as expected. I see almost no difference between either
> the two concentrators or the two .pcf files.  If anyone has any silver
> bullets I'd love to hear them as this keeps me from using VPN from my
> linux session which I need to do frequently.  To get around this
> temporarily, I fire up my VM XP session and establish the tunnel from
> there.  That works flawlessly with the same profile that doesn't work on
> the linux session.
> 
> Sorry this was so long.  Thanks for reading

Are you by any chance using the "resolvconf" package? I could never get
the Cisco VPN client to work properly, and resolvconf messed up my DNS
servers as well. I finally threw both Cisco VPN client and resolvconf out,
and installed the "vpnc" package instead. Easy to configure and use, I
recommend you use it too; let me know if you want a copy of my setup as an
example. 


-- 
H.A.J. Koster
"Behavioral axioms are right, but agents make mistakes..."
(attributed to L.J. Savage)