How do I to set the DNS server for a device using nmcli?

Question

How do I set the DNS server to be 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 through the CLI with nmcli?

$ nmcli device show eno1
GENERAL.DEVICE:                         eno1
GENERAL.TYPE:                           ethernet
GENERAL.HWADDR:                         C8:9C:DC:28:86:CA
GENERAL.MTU:                            1500
GENERAL.STATE:                          100 (connected)
GENERAL.CONNECTION:                     Wired connection 1
GENERAL.CON-PATH:                       /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
WIRED-PROPERTIES.CARRIER:               on
IP4.ADDRESS[1]:                         192.168.1.6/24
IP4.GATEWAY:                            192.168.1.1
IP4.ROUTE[1]:                           dst = 169.254.0.0/16, nh = 0.0.0.0, mt = 1000
IP4.DNS[1]:                             192.168.1.1
IP6.ADDRESS[1]:                         fe80::49c7:61b4:886f:27e9/64
IP6.GATEWAY:                            --

The Wired Connection 1, configured with the GUI, is using those DNS settings:

$ nmcli con show
NAME                UUID                                  TYPE             DEVICE  
Wired connection 1  f5687342-d1bd-3e5e-83a1-a1e2ec627d3c  802-3-ethernet   eno1    
docker0             84b0d93b-f4f7-4b52-a6cb-800d161f0954  bridge           docker0 
virbr0              024c6c7a-12f4-49ad-92b3-434106caad25  bridge           virbr0  
vici                c19aafd8-fa10-4577-a748-dee4cb684675  802-11-wireless  --      

in detail:

$ nmcli con show Wired_connection_1 | grep ipv4.dns
ipv4.dns:                               8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4
ipv4.dns-search:                        --
ipv4.dns-options:                       (default)
ipv4.dns-priority:                      0

but I'd like to apply that configuration using nmcli to eno1.

Somewhat tangentially, there looks to be a problem with DNS configuration for Ubuntu, perhaps a bug. (I'm effected by this bug, insofar as it shows in resolve.conf)

perhaps:

sudo nmcli dev set enp8s0 managed yes

or similar...

Solution

To add custom dns servers use

nmcli connection modify Wired_connection_1 ipv4.dns "192.168.1.1,8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4" 

to check if the config is ok use

nmcli connection show Wired_connection_1 | grep "dns"

ipv4.dns:                               192.168.1.1,8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4
ipv4.dns-search:                        --
ipv4.dns-options:                       (default)
ipv4.dns-priority:                      0
ipv4.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
ipv6.dns:                               --
ipv6.dns-search:                        --
ipv6.dns-options:                       (default)
ipv6.dns-priority:                      0
ipv6.ignore-auto-dns:                   no

I stumbled upon same issue if I remove the 192.168.1.1 then due to some internal vmware networking bridging it wasn't working, but to set the additional dns server, you can use the above method.

Comments

[Alexey Ce]

I can't quite recall what I was doing, and won't be able to check the answer for some time. But sounds right.