diff --git a/cluster/addons/dns/README.md b/cluster/addons/dns/README.md
index 512bedd757077..888a3aca7f12d 100644
--- a/cluster/addons/dns/README.md
+++ b/cluster/addons/dns/README.md
@@ -1,25 +1,36 @@
 # DNS in Kubernetes
-[SkyDNS](https://github.com/skynetservices/skydns) can be configured
-to automatically run in a Kubernetes cluster.
+
+Kubernetes offers a DNS cluster addon, which most of the supported environments
+enable by default.  We use [SkyDNS](https://github.com/skynetservices/skydns)
+as the DNS server, with some custom logic to slave it to the kubernetes API
+server.
 
 ## What things get DNS names?
 The only objects to which we are assigning DNS names are Services.  Every
 Kubernetes Service is assigned a virtual IP address which is stable as long as
-the Service exists.  This maps well to DNS, which has a long history of clients
-that, on purpose or on accident, do not respect DNS TTLs.
+the Service exists (as compared to Pod IPs which can change over time due to
+crashes or scheduling changes).  This maps well to DNS, which has a long
+history of clients that, on purpose or on accident, do not respect DNS TTLs
+(see previous remark about Pod IPs changing).
 
 ## How do I find the DNS server?
 The DNS server itself runs as a Kubernetes Service.  This gives it a stable IP
-address.  When you run the SkyDNS service, you can assign a static IP to use for
-the Service.  For example, if you assign `DNS_SERVER_IP` (see below) as
-10.0.0.10, you can configure your docker daemon with the flag `--dns 10.0.0.10`.
+address.  When you run the SkyDNS service, you want to assign a static IP to use for
+the Service.  For example, if you assign the DNS Service IP as `10.0.0.10`, you
+can configure your kubelet to pass that on to each container as a DNS server.
 
 Of course, giving services a name is just half of the problem - DNS names need a
-domain also.  This implementation uses the variable `DNS_DOMAIN` (see below).
-You can configure your docker daemon with the flag `--dns-search`.
+domain also.  This implementation uses a configurable local domain, which can
+also be passed to containers by kubelet as a DNS search suffix.
 
 ## How do I configure it?
-The following environment variables are used at cluster startup to create the SkyDNS pods and configure the kubelets. If you need to, you can reconfigure your provider as necessary (e.g. `cluster/gce/config-default.sh`):
+The easiest way to use DNS is to use a supported kubernetes cluster setup,
+which should have the required logic to read some config variables and plumb
+them all the way down to kubelet.
+
+Supported environments offer the following config flags, which are used at
+cluster turn-up to create the SkyDNS pods and configure the kubelets.  For
+example, see `cluster/gce/config-default.sh`.
 
 ```shell
 ENABLE_CLUSTER_DNS=true
@@ -28,14 +39,34 @@ DNS_DOMAIN="kubernetes.local"
 DNS_REPLICAS=1
 ```
 
+This enables DNS with a DNS Service IP of `10.0.0.10` and a local domain of
+`kubernetes.local`, served by a single copy of SkyDNS.
+
+If you are not using a supported cluster setup, you will have to replicate some
+of this yourself.  First, each kubelet needs to run with the following flags
+set:
+
+```
+--cluster_dns=<DNS service ip>
+--cluster_domain=<default local domain>
+```
+
+Second, you need to start the DNS server ReplicationController and Service. See
+the example files ([ReplicationController](skydns-rc.yaml.in) and
+[Service](skydns-svc.yaml.in)), but keep in mind that these are templated for
+Salt.  You will need to replace the `{{ <param> }}` blocks with your own values
+for the config variables mentioned above.  Other than the templating, these are
+normal kubernetes objects, and can be instantiated with `kubectl create`.
+
 ## How does it work?
 SkyDNS depends on etcd for what to serve, but it doesn't really need all of
-what etcd offers in the way we use it.  For simplicty, we run etcd and SkyDNS
-together in a pod, and we do not try to link etcd instances across replicas.  A
-helper container called `kube2sky` also runs in the pod and acts a bridge
-between Kubernetes and SkyDNS.  It finds the Kubernetes master through the
-`kubernetes-ro` service, it pulls service info from the master, and it writes
-that to etcd for SkyDNS to find.
+what etcd offers (at least not in the way we use it).  For simplicty, we run
+etcd and SkyDNS together in a pod, and we do not try to link etcd instances
+across replicas.  A helper container called [kube2sky](kube2sky/) also runs in
+the pod and acts a bridge between Kubernetes and SkyDNS.  It finds the
+Kubernetes master through the `kubernetes-ro` service (via environment
+variables), pulls service info from the master, and writes that to etcd for
+SkyDNS to find.
 
 ## Known issues
 Kubernetes installs do not configure the nodes' resolv.conf files to use the