Upstart and resolvconf cache

I’ve recently found this when I was trying to fix a nameserver config issue with resolvconf on Ubuntu. When resolvconf populates /etc/resolv.conf, it will read what we have configured in /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d (head, base, tail, etc) and also any dns-server declared in /etc/network/interfaces. I had a conflict with something I was populating in the head file (with Puppet) from something that was configured under /etc/network/interfaces. So I removed the conflicting dns-server declaration from the interfaces file and run “resolvconf -u” to update the config. To my surprise, the “deleted” nameservers from /etc/network/interfaces were still included in /etc/resolv.conf. After some debugging, I have noticed that resolvconf’s Upstart script now keeps a cache file under /run/resolvconf/interface that is a copy of the previous /etc/network/interfaces. You need to delete this file and restart resolvconf to make it work: “stop resolvconf ; start resolvconf”.