Every once in a while, i connect to my schools VPN network to access data. I use vpnc to connect. Everything works ok, except that as soon as i connect to the VPN, i lose my DNS server....so i cant ping www.google.com or go to www.google.com, but i can go to http://216.239.37.99 and i can ping 216.239.37.99......basiclly, i need to know how to specify a DNS server after i connect..

if you're just resetting your default route to go down the vpn, just add the dns servers to your /etc/resolv.conf permanently along with your normal ones... afaik vpnc won't overwrite any. personally though i'd recommened configuring vpnc to NOT change your default route, instaed only make it route the individual netowrks you ned and keep your internet traffic going the same way as before. the newer versions of vpnc come with an example wrapper script vpnc-script or something, into with you can define some variables to show what specific subnets to route. if you define none, it will suck everything into it.

editing the vpnc-script did the trick...my vpnc client was old and didnt come with a script by default, upgrading the package created the emaple script and i was able to get it all working, thank you.