Minos's questions

The 2TB disk that I use as an encrypted backup, is now reported by Ubuntu as being just free space. The encryption was setup as a LUKS encrypted device.

The output of sudo fdisk -l reports:

Disk /dev/sdc: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6b6edeba

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

Note that there is no partition information reported (there was only one partition on the disk).

Trying to open the disk with sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdc crypt1 returns the error:

Device /dev/sdc is not a valid LUKS device.

Now luckily I have backups of the backup, so I can live with the data being going this time, however I need to know: What caused it and/or how I can fix it, because otherwise I can't trust my backup to be there in the future and I will have to find a different solution.

Edit1: Per request a screenshot of the Disks Utility:

This is on Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS.

This question is pretty much a duplicate of this question. However I'm starting this question, because all the answers in the other question seem to focus on how to setup a custom shortcut for gnome-system-monitor, while the actual question is why does it not work?

That is I make a custom shortcut to launch gnome-system-monitor. I make sure that the System Log out is disabled (which is ctrl+alt+del by default). When I bind the gnome-system-monitor shortcut to anything else (say ctrl+alt+[), everything is fine and the system monitor starts.

But nothing happens when I assign it to Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

This is in Ubuntu 14.04 and I now this shortcut worked in previous versions.

When you install a package manually via a .deb it doesn't get updated by apt (see also this question), but what happens when you install a package that isn't available from the repositories for the current Ubuntu version, but gets included into a later Ubuntu version. When you upgrade to this new version that includes the package by default, will the system:

• Realize that the package is already installed and update it in the proper way.
• Realize that the package is already installed, but hold it on the manually installed version.
• Not realize that it is installed and install it again, causing the same package to be installed twice.
• Crash and burn in some other way?

If any of the later options is the correct answer, how do I prevent it?

When I right click on Properties for my ext4 partition I get the following pie chart:

The meaning of the blue and white slices are fairly obvious, since they are in the legend to the right, but what does the grey slice represent? It's quite substantial and at least a couple of GB's in size.

I'm using nautilus-actions to run scripts and commands by right clicking in nautilus and I know how to set nautilus-actions so that it only shows an option when certain conditions are met, such as mime-type, part of a name or a particular file extension.

I still haven't figured out how to show these options for any file, but not folders. I'm sure this option exists, but I just can't seem to find it. Does anyone know how to do that? if there is a graphical option, could you provide a screenshot of it, so I can try to localize it? Thanks!

I can export a VPN configuration and reimport it on a different machine.

But I need to do this for a dozen different connections (10>) on multiple machines.

Is there anyway I can import these configurations in one batch?

I'm trying to use python3 to plot graphs.

The only back-end for matplotlib that seems to work is tkAgg (Tkinter), however this looks like it has been designed in the Stone Age. So I was trying to find a replacement. As I'm using Unity which is based on Gnome and which uses GTK I thought I would use those. However I can't get any of the following back-ends to work:

GTKAgg (requires python(3)-gtk2)
GTK3AGG (gtk3Agg backend is not known to work on Python 3.x.)
GTK3Cairo (no window opens)
QT4AGG (requires QT4 which is not installed on my system).

I have installed the following packages:

python3 python3-matplotlib ipython3 python3-cairo python3-gi 

I have also tried installing python3-gtk2 but that returns this error:

Package python3-gtk2 is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source

Which I'm guessing means that I'm not supposed to use it on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Choosing GTK3Cairo as a backend throws no errors and imports fine using ipython3 and pylabs; but, it also doesn't open a new window when I call the plot() function.

Is there really nothing else that I can use besides tkinter?

Is the encfs project no longer maintained? It seems the last update 1.7.4 was released on November 18 2010. In a security audit several weaknesses have been identified, but no updates have since been issued. Should encfs still be used? if not, why is it in the standard repositories of Ubuntu?

I have multiple servers that share files via webDAV. The connections are secured with TLS and the same wild card certificate on all servers. I have different subdomains pointing to the respective servers. However I can't get davfs2 to accept my wild card certificates, it keeps complaining: /sbin/mount.davfs: the server certificate does not match the server name

So for example I have:

ServerA.mydomain.com ServerB.mydomain.com

all have certificate that covers *.mydomain.com and a SAN for mydomain.com

Everything works fine of course if I use mydomain.com for webDAV because that one is explicitly covered in the certificate.

I could add all my subdomains as SAN's to the certificate, but I can't keep reissuing certificates each time I put a machine up (or take one down).

So is there anyway to make davfs2 accept wildcard certificates?

How do I make a webDAV share mountable, so that is available for all users? without having to type in a password.

I'm trying to mount a webDAV share with this fstab line:

myserverip /media/myserver/ davfs noauto,user,rw 0 0

I have added the secret credentials to ~/.davfs2/secrets.

Also done sudo dpkg-reconfigure davfs2 to allow mounting by non-root users.

This all works fine if I have the following in /etc/davfs2/davfs2.conf:

dav_user        myusername         # system wide config file only
dav_group       myusername         # system wide config file only

But this obviously only works for one user, however if I leave it at the default:

dav_user        davfs2           # system wide config file only
dav_group       davfs2           # system wide config file only

and add my user account to the group davfs2 via

sudo usermod -aG davfs2 myusername

which is successful as shown by the output of groups myusername:

myusername : myusername davfs2

However when I now try to mount the share I get the following error:

/sbin/mount.davfs: user myusername must be a member of group davfs2

So how do I get it to mount by group and why does it not recognize that I’m in the correct group.

I'm running a dual monitor setup, with one of the monitors most of the time in standby, but connected (it's a TV). It works fine if both are turned on, but when the monitor is in Standby mode some windows still open on that screen. Where I can't see the window to select it and drag it back to the correct screen.

As I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 with Unity, I can't select the invisible windows either, because the Unity Launcher only shows application windows on the current screen/workspace?

What I can do however is use Alt+Tab to select the window and then drag it back with alt+f7. But this is quite a hassle if you have to do it with a lot of windows. Sometimes I resort to just pulling the cable from the back of my pc, which does move all the screens into the correct screen.

So is it possible to:

1. Make the Windows open on the screen that is actually on and not just connected in Standby mode.

2. Make unity show all windows in the launcher (I don't even have the launcher enabled on the second screen?).

3. Have a shortcut to move the screens back to the correct screen in one go.

I have an ATI graphics card with proprietary drivers and the always on screen is the primary screen.

Thanks!

P.S. output of xrandr:

DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 connected 1920x1080+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

In the Network Manager applet on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS I have an extra item called 'Xperia Z Network' with the network name 'Xperia Z' and a greyed out status 'disconnected'. Unfortunately I can't take a screenshot of the applet (it closes if I press print screen). This item is between 'Ethernet Network' and 'Wifi Networks'.

If I click on 'edit connections' the item is not there and there is no network by the same name to remove.

I do own an Xperia Z, so it somehow made a connection with it once. But the menu item remains there even if the phone is powered off and ubuntu rebooted. Also the only connection I ever made with the phone is by setting up a tethered hotspot from my phone, with a different name.

So why is the item in my Network Manager and how do I get it to go away and not reappear.