Ubuntu Setting Static IP

So on Friday, I was trying to set a static IP in Ubuntu 8, it took me forever to figure out how to do it. I ran into problems where I'd try to set it using the network configuration application, but each time I restarted the machine I would lose all the settings and it would default to dhcp.

I then tried editing /etc/network/interfaces like so

iface eth0 inet static
address 18.116.0.208
netmask 255.255.0.0
gateway 18.116.0.1

with all sorts of DNS stuff in there, but even though this set the IP correctly the DNS didn't work.

To get the DNS working I had to add DNS info this file:

/etc/resolv.conf

domain mit.edu
search mit.edu
nameserver 18.71.0.151
nameserver 18.70.0.160
nameserver 18.72.0.3

That finally worked, hope this helps anyone encountering this issue.