Hi I am running Linux Mandrake 9.2 on a IBM NetVista.

Everyday on my computer the Internet is either very slow or it doesn't work at all.

I have to su as root, and change /etc/resolv.conf to our corporate DNS servers. The default file is

nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 198.XXX.XXX.XXX

(I can't remember off the top of my head what the XXX's are)

So I change, save, and then my Internet works perfectly, but only for a few hours. I su as root, go back into /etc/resolv.conf and find that it has the defaults again!!! grrr

I have to change the file two times a day. Is there any way to make the changes permanent??

Thank you.

try :

chattr i /etc/resolv.conf

from man chattr :
A file with the `i' attribute cannot be modified: it cannot be deleted or renamed,
no link can be created to this file and no data can be written to the file. Only
the superuser or a process possessing the CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE capability can set or
clear this attribute.

This may help waiting to find a more mandraky way

Your machine is most likely getting its IP addy via DHCP. When the IP lease expires and the machine request a "new" lease the reslov.conf is re-written each time. If the client is not asking for the DNS server addys or the DHCP server is failing to provide them then this is where your problem lies...

I assume you can SU up and "man dhclient.conf" to hook up a fix on the client side...

Avatar, as you are using Mandrake,

edit your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethx (where x is the number for the NIC that faces the Internet)
set PEERDNS=no

You can also try using dhcpcd with -R switch, which causes the resolv.conf file gets never updated.

Yes my computer is a DHCP client. it's IP address is normally the same, though. It is possible that it's not getting the DNS servers from the DHCP server. I have edited the ifcfg-eth0 file as ppuru suggested.

Nichole, I found this file: /usr/share/doc/dhcp-client-3.0/dhclient.conf
Should I edit it? Being that it's in a doc directory, I'm not too sure if it's acutally being used.

Thanks everyone. Hopefully this will fix it.

That may be a "default" conf file... I am not familiar with the mandrake /etc layout. On Slack there is a directory for dhcp in /etc and the dhcp configfiles are located in the /etc. I would assume that other distro are more or/less the same.
During a brief fling with a full dhcp server run I did read it was possible to do several things via the dhclient.conf.
You could request the same address from the server all the time. You could also set or request extended lease times. You could "fix" the DNS order and the resolv.conf write. Also set info that the dhcp server failed to pass.

I use fix addressing on my net for my prime machines. My Dragon pups get their addys via netboot and dhcp only these addresses and the server assigns addies to the mac of the nic directly.