How to setup DNS server list on a static IP Ubuntu server?

[Knute Johnson]

I had a power hit that required me to reload my Ubuntu server.  In the 
process I had it running on my local network with DHCP until I got 
everything configured.  Now I put it up on my wild IP and have had some 
difficulty configuring it back to static IP with domain names not 
resolving.  Ubuntu server 11.10.

/etc/resolv.conf

# Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by 
resolvconf(8)
#     DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN

This was where you used to put the DNS servers in the older version of 
Ubuntu.  So I looked in the /etc/network/interfaces file and found;

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
         address 216.240.58.140
         netmask 255.255.255.248
         network 216.240.58.0
         broadcast 216.240.58.143
         gateway 216.240.58.137
         # dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if 
installed
         dns-nameservers
         dns-search com

Putting the DNS servers on the 'dns-nameservers' line appears to work 
but there are more files, /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/base, head, tail 
and original.  original has this in it;

domain ljr-int-wan.frazmtn.com
search ljr-int-wan.frazmtn.com
nameserver 4.2.2.1
nameserver 4.2.2.2

The domain and search were apparently found by the installation program 
as that was the correct name for the outside.  I did put those name 
servers in when I installed too.

The documentation at 
https://help.ubuntu.com/11.10/serverguide/C/network-configuration.html 
is old and doesn't mention any of these new files or the 
/sbin/resolvconf program.

Does anybody know how it is really supposed to be set up and managed? 
Or do you know where there is some documentation that applies?

Thanks,

-- 

Knute Johnson