resolv.conf

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In Unix and related computer operating systems, the configuration file resolv.conf contains information that allows a computer connected to the Internet to resolve names into addresses.

Before a computer can connect to an external network resource (say, for example, a web server), it must have a means of converting any alpha-numeric names (e.g. wikipedia.org) into numeric network addresses (e.g. 66.230.200.10). (The Internet uses these structured numeric IP addresses as network addresses.)

The resolv.conf file typically contains the IP addresses of nameservers (DNS name resolvers) that will attempt to translate names into addresses for any node available on the network.

Historical reasons explain the spelling of "resolve" without the trailing "e" in "resolv.conf".^[clarify]

The configuration file resolv.conf should not be confused with the program resolvconf, which unfortunately has a nearly identical name. The resolvconf program was created to manage the contents of the resolv.conf configuration file and is not necessary unless multiple programs need to dynamically modify the file.

resolv.conf is usually located under the etc directory or /etc/resolv.conf