How to change the DNS settings for WSL 2

In this article we will go thorough a step-by-step guide to help you change the automatic DNS resolution in WSL 2. This is usually needed when you run WSL 2 behind a VPN.

First, we need to turn off auto generation of /etc/resolv.conf to setup our custom DNS servers.

We'll do it by editing /etc/wsl.conf and setting generateResolvConf to false.

echo "[network]" | sudo tee /etc/wsl.conf
echo "generateResolvConf = false" | sudo tee -a /etc/wsl.conf

Now, we enable editing the /etc/resolv.conf file

sudo chattr -i /etc/resolv.conf

and after that, we delete the current auto generated one.

sudo rm -rf /etc/resolv.conf

Now, we can setup our custom DNS servers. For the purpose of this article, I'm going to setup Google's DNS servers, you can always add more/other servers.

echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.4" | sudo tee -a /etc/resolv.conf

Finally, we lock /etc/resolv.conf from editing

sudo chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

Close and reopen the terminal, and your configured DNS settings will have effect.