How to Disable Local DNS Caching on Ubuntu and LinuxMint

The Ubuntu team included dnsmasq service from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release. This turns your system to be a local DNS caching server. When we access any website the first time, The system first search in the local DNS cache, It no entry found in local cache for the specified domain, it requests to remote DNS servers configured on your system and gets results from there. Also makes a local cache for faster resolution for next time you access the same domain.

This tutorial will help you to disable local DNS caching on Ubuntu and LinuxMint systems. You can also clear current DNS cache instead of disable it completely.

Log in to your system with the user has sudo privileges and Edit NetworkManager configuration file in your favorite text editor.

sudo vim /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Now comment the following entry by added # symbol to start of line like below.

#dns=dnsmasq

Save the configuration file. Vi users use ESC + :wq to save file and quit. Execute below command to NetworkManager apply new settings.

sudo service network-manager restart

All done.