Question
How to resolve "Temporary failure in name resolution" issue
- Posted on November 5, 2017
- Ubuntu 16.04LAMP Stack
Asked by Kyle Johnston
I rebooted my server (Ubuntu 16.04 w/ LAMP) about ~14 hours ago. Since then, I can’t run apt-get or ping, and I’m seeing a lot of “Temporary failure in name resolution” errors in my syslog.
Here’s the output when I run apt-get:
Err:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease
Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
Err:2 http://dl.google.com/linux/mod-pagespeed/deb stable InRelease
Temporary failure resolving 'dl.google.com'
Err:3 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
Err:4 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease
Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
Err:5 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu xenial-backports InRelease
Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
Err:6 https://repos.sonar.digitalocean.com/apt main InRelease
Could not resolve host: repos.sonar.digitalocean.com
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial/InRelease Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-updates/InRelease Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-backports/InRelease Temporary failure resolving 'mirrors.digitalocean.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-security/InRelease Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch https://repos.sonar.digitalocean.com/apt/dists/main/InRelease Could not resolve host: repos.sonar.digitalocean.com
W: Failed to fetch http://dl.google.com/linux/mod-pagespeed/deb/dists/stable/InRelease Temporary failure resolving 'dl.google.com'
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
I suspect it’s a DNS issue, but I’m not sure how to resolve. What should I look for?
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I have this issue too. I suspect there is an issue with DigitalOcean’s nameservers, so this will likely affect a lot of other people too. Here’s what I’ve done to temporarily get around it - but someone else might be able to advise on a better long-term fix:
Make sure your DNS Resolver config file is writable:
sudo chmod o+r /etc/resolv.confTemporarily change your DNS to use Google’s nameservers instead of DigitalOcean’s:
sudo nano /etc/resolv.confChange the IP address in the file to:
8.8.8.8Press
CTRL+Xto save the file.This is only a temporary fix as this file is automatically written/updated by the server, however I’ve not yet worked out what writes to it so that I can update it permanently.
Hello,
Just came across this question in 2021. As the
/etc/resove.confis managed by systemd-resolved, it should not be edited directly.You can do that by updating the
/etc/systemd/resolved.conffile instead, and under the[Resolve]section set:After that restart
systemd-resolved:Finally to make sure that the change was successful check the status:
Hope that this helps. Regards, Bobby
My issue was related to a wrong datetime. After executing
rdate -uns 83.91.10.45ist was solved.