Temporary Failure in name resolution on WSL

Question

Running Ubuntu on WSL and trying to push to github and download new python modules using pip and I get this error.

Retrying (Retry(total=4, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.VerifiedHTTPSConnection object at 0x7f9d654fe0b8>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution',)': /simple/tensorflow/

I had a look at the resolv.conf file and maybe its corrupted as it just gives a few lines of @@@. Anyone got any ideas how to fix this?

When I run l

ls -al /etc/resolv.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 261 Nov 28 12:54 /etc/resolv.conf

Update:

I managed to fix the problem. Needed to edit the file and add a line like this:

nameserver 8.8.8.8

Solution 1

1. Inside WSL2, create or append file: /etc/wsl.conf

2. Put the following lines in the file in order to ensure the your DNS changes do not get blown away

   sudo tee /etc/wsl.conf << EOF
   [network]
   generateResolvConf = false
   EOF
   

3. In a cmd window (!!), run wsl --shutdown

4. Start WSL2

5. Run the following inside WSL2

   sudo rm -rf /etc/resolv.conf
   sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf << EOF
   search yourbase.domain.local
   nameserver 8.8.8.8
   nameserver 1.1.1.1
   EOF
   

Solution 2

I have the same problem. It also seems to be realted to VPN. I found out, that it only fails the DNS lookup when I first connect the VPN before starting WSL-Ubuntu after System-Reboot. First starting WSL-Ubuntu and afterwards connecting the VPN seems to work.

Solution 3

I had the same error. Pinging IP addresses worked, but no DNS resolution. Outside of WSL everything was fine. The problem was caused by OpenVPN for me, when I disconnected from my workplace's VPN, the error was gone.

Solution 4

For me it was a simple fix. From powershell:

wsl --shutdown

And then restart wsl and it worked. Yes, I know this solution is too simple and might not be good to you if trying to avoid reset to WSL. But in case you look for something simple, maybe worth trying

Solution 5

When I ran ls -lah /etc/resolv.conf, I saw that it was a symlink to ../run/resolvconf/resolv.conf.

But then I noticed that ../run/resolvconf/resolv.conf didn't exist, and in fact, although the /run/ directory existed, /run/resolvconf/ did not.

So I created that directory and also created an empty file sudo vim /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf.

Then I edited that file to contain:

nameserver 1.1.1.1

After saving that file, ping google.com worked!

(It seems like that file is required. I don't know how mine got removed.)

https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/6601 was helpful for me.

View more solutions

Comments

[Terrance]

It might be corrupted. When looking at what is contained in the /etc/resolv.conf it is actually a link to /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf The file is supposed to be automatically generated by WSL. Maybe you need to recreate the /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf file with just the line of # This file was automatically generated by WSL. To stop automatic generation of this file, remove this line.

[Boris Hamanov]

Edit your question and show me ls -al /etc/resolv.conf.

[m_bash]

I have edited the post

[Boris Hamanov]

The symbolic link for /etc/resolv.conf is missing, and the static file contains garbage. So... temporarily edit /etc/resolv.conf (sudo -H gedit /etc/resolv.conf), remove everything there, and just enter 8.8.8.8 and save the file. Retest. Report back. Start comments to me with @heynnema or I may miss them.

[m_bash]

@heynnema Tried that and still no change.

[Boris Hamanov]

I'm not familiar with WSL, but if the /etc/resolv.conf file still contains 8.8.8.8, instead of garbage, something is really wrong. Because of the WSL component, I really can't suggest what to do next.

[m_bash]

@heynnema I fixed it. I just needed to add nameserver before the 8.8.8.8 and then it works fine. Thanks a lot

[Boris Hamanov]

Thanks for the update! Glad it's working for you now.

[Vaal]

Thanks, that was it for me! Turns out it is triggered by the 'block-outside-dns' flag in my config. Used to work fine, but no longer after updating to 2004!.

[David]

That doesn't work for me

[Guilherme]

It is happened to me even without connecting the VPN

[userfuser]

Thanks for mentioning the VPN! When I disabled my VPN (under Windows), the apt update in WSL started working.

[Lucho]

It works. Wow. Nice!.

[Admin]

I had to remove the brackets from the "search" line!

[Admin]

@FrankPuck sorry my bad, i have fixed it

[Admin]

The sledgehammer worked for me, thanks @ferdinand-prantl. I have Sophos on top of windows firewall, so adding the rules for windows firewall did not seem to have any effects. With the sledgehammer, everything worked.