Javad's questions

Before I ask my question, let me clarify for dear moderators that I've searched a lot for a solution, but none of the questions/answers on Askubuntu (and other Stackexchange sites) addresses my problem.

I've set up openVPN on a Debian server and also on my Ubuntu host, and now I'm trying to route all traffic (except DHCP) at client-side through openVPN tunnel. I read almost all guides on the Web with no success. I read this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and some other guides and articles. And none of them resolved the porblem. If I use redirect-gateway def1 command at my client.conf (or push it from server-side (server.conf)), at client-side I cannot resolve domain names to IPs (basically DNS queries fail), but I can ping public (valid) IPs e.g. Google's DNS server (from my client host).

Here is my server.conf:

proto udp
port 1194
dev tun
ca ca.crt
cert myserver.crt
key myserver.key
dh dh1024.pem
server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0
ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt
duplicate-cn
keepalive 10 120
comp-lzo
persist-key
persist-tun
status openvpn-status.log
log         openvpn.log
verb 3

And here's my client.conf:

client
dev tun
proto udp
remote x.x.x.x 1194
nobind
persist-key
persist-tun
mute-replay-warnings
ca ca.crt
cert client1.crt
key client1.key
ns-cert-type server
comp-lzo
verb 3
redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dns bypass-dhcp

On the server side, I also issued the following command (to NAT the incoming openVPN traffic):

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.8.0.0/24 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

Here are the log and openvpn-status.log.

UPDATE:

If I use te following command at server side (redirecting DNS queries) mentioned here, the problem gets resolved (apparently), but how can I make sure that the traffic is going through the VPN link?

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i tun+ -p udp --dport 53 -j DNAT --to-destination 8.8.8.8

I had a problem with displaying wifi signal strength and IP in conky (though downloaded and uploaded amounts and DL/UP bitrates were getting displayed). I use a Dell Studio 1535 laptop with a broadcom wireless adapter (BCM4312). After googling for a while and being unable to find a solution, I thought it might be beneficial to share my experience of resolving this problem. It's worth to mention that I use Linux Mint 15 64 bit, which is based on Ubuntu (repositories and everything), therefore I think this must apply to Ubuntu as well.

Is there any CD/DVD burning app/ISO format which supports files and directories with long non-English (unicode) names? Apparently Joliet-long ISO standard supports filename up to 103 characters, but I'm not sure if it supports unicode as well, and if Brasero or any other Gnome app can burn DVDs with this format. I found out that an app called gBurner does quite a decent job, but unluckily it's a Win app.

I have to burn the contents of my external HDD, but since my data contains many downloaded pages (with companion HTML pages' directories containing pictures, JS scripts, CSS styles, and so on) and since many of those filenames contain non-English characters, I need some app/format to be capable of burining them safely on a DVD (without the old-fashioned need to compress the contents under a English filename), such that the content is readable on Linux and Win machines.

I'm a big fan of Evernote, I use it regularly. However, it has a 60MB storage limit (although text files are not going to occupy much space, but the limitation concern still remains).

Today, I installed Xournal, which has great features like annotating, nice background, free hand shapes and notes, save in PDF format, and many more. But the big problem is that as far as I've noticed, there is no intrinsic feature for search inside the notes (created using Xournal with .xoj suffix). I used Catfish File Search application (which creates bash commands for full text search), but it couldn't help as well. Is there anyway to search inside a .xoj file at all? If so, it could be a suitable alternative to evernote, if you put your .xoj files on a cloud (which certainly offers you much more storage space than 60MB).

If not, is there any other convenient app similar to Evernote, but with higher storage limit or without a limit? Somebody suggested Zim desktop wiki app, which looks great, but I'm nut sure if I could copy and paste everything there (a mixture of photos and tables and text with various formats and highlights), like what I do with Evernote. And a very useful tool I use is Evernote Web Clipper (browser extension). Of course, having a desktop client like Everpad is a plus, but not the absolute need.

PS: I use pocket, so please do suggest that (it only preserve links (which might change over time) not the actual text). I also use google drive or docs, I don't like that for this purpose neither, it's too slow, doesn't have a browser extension and a desktop client.

Thank you so much in advance.