tudor -Reinstate Monica-'s questions

I can connect to my Ubuntu 22.04 computer using Remmina RDP with "Remote Login" enabled when I'm logged in. However, as soon as the target's console is locked, I can no longer connect. Port 3389 is open but it shuts down the connection immediately. As soon as I log in physically I can access it remotely again (until the display lock kicks in).

I can disable the display lock but then anyone can access the display without needing my credentials.

I can change my account to autologin and disable the keysafe but then the computer is accessible all the time.

How do I protect my 22.04 machine while being able to access it remotely using the new "Remote Login" RDP method?

I'm trying to follow this tutorial but I'm using Ubuntu 21.04: https://run.tournament.org.il/ubuntu-20-04-and-tpm2-encrypted-system-disk/

When I run the second command:

sudo tpm2_nvdefine -s 64 0x1500016

I get the error:

WARNING:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_NV_DefineSpace.c:337:Esys_NV_DefineSpace_Finish() Received TPM Error 
ERROR:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_NV_DefineSpace.c:122:Esys_NV_DefineSpace() Esys Finish ErrorCode (0x000009a2) 
ERROR: Failed to define NV area at index 0x1500016
ERROR: Esys_NV_DefineSpace(0x9A2) - tpm:session(1):authorization failure without DA implications
ERROR: Failed to create NV index 0x1500016.
ERROR: Unable to run tpm2_nvdefine

I have also tried:

sudo tpm2_clear

which resulted in:

WARNING:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_Clear.c:291:Esys_Clear_Finish() Received TPM Error 
ERROR:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_Clear.c:97:Esys_Clear() Esys Finish ErrorCode (0x0000098e) 
ERROR: Esys_Clear(0x98E) - tpm:session(1):the authorization HMAC check failed and DA counter incremented
ERROR: Unable to run tpm2_clear

which lead me to look at the status:

$ sudo tpm2_getcap properties-variable | egrep 'TPM2_PT_(MAX|LOCKOUT).*'
TPM2_PT_LOCKOUT_COUNTER: 0x0
TPM2_PT_MAX_AUTH_FAIL: 0xA
TPM2_PT_LOCKOUT_INTERVAL: 0x1C20
TPM2_PT_LOCKOUT_RECOVERY: 0x1C20

I have also tried:

sudo tpm2_dictionarylockout --setup-parameters --max-tries=4294967295 --clear-lockout

which also results in a similar error:

WARNING:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_DictionaryAttackLockReset.c:288:Esys_DictionaryAttackLockReset_Finish() Received TPM Error 
ERROR:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_DictionaryAttackLockReset.c:98:Esys_DictionaryAttackLockReset() Esys Finish ErrorCode (0x00000921) 
ERROR: Esys_DictionaryAttackLockReset(0x921) - tpm:warn(2.0): authorizations for objects subject to DA protection are not allowed at this time because the TPM is in DA lockout mode
ERROR: Unable to run tpm2_dictionarylockout

I have also tried the first command from the tpm2-tools tutorial on disk encryption here: https://tpm2-software.github.io/2020/04/13/Disk-Encryption.html

which says:

sudo tpm2_createprimary -Q -C o -c prim.ctx

and results in a similar error:

WARNING:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_CreatePrimary.c:393:Esys_CreatePrimary_Finish() Received TPM Error 
ERROR:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_CreatePrimary.c:135:Esys_CreatePrimary() Esys Finish ErrorCode (0x000009a2) 
ERROR: Esys_CreatePrimary(0x9A2) - tpm:session(1):authorization failure without DA implications
ERROR: Unable to run tpm2_createprimary

I've google all these errors but can't find an understandable explanation. There's a lot of information out there but from tpm-tools and/or with completely incorrect parameters. It seems that the tpm2_* commands change very quickly!

Does this mean my TPM has been disabled or locked out?

I notice that tpm2_takeownership is no longer in the Ubuntu package (and not in 20.04 either) so other solutions I've found around the internet won't work (unless I install it from source), but I figure this isn't expected if it isn't in the package.

Other things (like tpm2_pcrread) thrown no errors. So is it possible that my TPM is readable but not writeable? How can I reset it or is this a manufacturer's setting or something I need to do in BIOS to make it writeable?

After upgrading to Ubuntu 19.10, I have no sound under kernel 5.3.0-19-generic. This is a Dell Venue 7140 with a Broadwell RT286 Soundcard for built-in audio on I2S, (and Intel HD Audio for HDMI, which is working OK).

The audio settings detect the soundcard and speakers:

The test buttons are shown:

But if I press them, the interface locks up for a period.

I get the following error messages in /var/log/syslog:

Nov  2 15:52:23 pulseaudio[2232]: E: [alsa-source-System Playback/Capture (*)] alsa-source.c: Failed to set hardware parameters: Connection timed out
Nov  2 15:52:23 kernel: [11956.051457] haswell-pcm-audio haswell-pcm-audio: ipc: --message timeout-- ipcx 0x83000000 isr 0x00000000 ipcd 0x00000000 imrx 0x7fff0000
Nov  2 15:52:23 kernel: [11956.051463] haswell-pcm-audio haswell-pcm-audio: error: stream commit failed
Nov  2 15:52:23 kernel: [11956.051466]  System PCM: error: failed to commit stream -110
Nov  2 15:52:23 kernel: [11956.051469] haswell-pcm-audio haswell-pcm-audio: ASoC: haswell-pcm-audio hw params failed: -110
Nov  2 15:52:23 kernel: [11956.051474]  System PCM: ASoC: hw_params FE failed -110

pavucontrol is slow to connect to pulseaudio but shows the soundcard parameters and details as normal.

alsamixer shows the soundcard as normal, but adjustments take a long time to be recognised.

I tried deleting the .config/pulse directory but it didn't improve the situation.

If I boot into the kernel from before the upgrade, kernel 5.0.0-32-generic, the sound works! \o/ So it's definitely something to do with the kernel.

How do I get the soundcard to work properly again?

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that we have a touchscreen keyboard.

All the good keys are there for normal language...

Keys are there to get into vim command mode....*

And I can write my bash scripts in emoji!

But wait, now I'm stuck!

How do I:

• ESC (escape current mode in vi??) Can't get back my work!!
• CTRL (I can't CTRL+Z to jump back to the same shell)
• ARROW KEYS (How am I ever going to play Kings Quest on DosBox now???)

:-(

:-p

*(Please excuse the hidden joke if you try this.)

When I try to install usbdm (Version 4.12 released October 2018) by downloading the .deb from https://sourceforge.net/projects/usbdm/ and manually installing it with:

dpkg -i usbdm_4.12.1.210-1-x86_64.deb

I get the error that libxerces-c3.1 is missing.

My Synaptic Touchpad stopped working in the past few weeks.

The touchscreen and external mouse still work so I've been using them to work around it.

The symptoms are:

• Touchpad works on login screen
• Touchpad stops working after login screen
• All other inputs work, including keyboard, touchscreen, external mouse, docking station, etc.
• Doesn't work on Wayland, either.
• F7 key comes up with a square with an X in the bottom-right corner, but the X won't go away no matter how many times I press it.
• sudo rmmod usbhid; sudo modprobe usbhid enables the touchpad for a split second.

For the previous few weeks, I've been able to resurrect the touchpad with sudo rmmod usbhid; sudo modprobe usbhid so I suspect that this issue is in two parts.

xinput list shows:

 Virtual core pointer                       id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SYNA7500:00 06CB:780B                     id=16   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Synaptics T Pad V 01.31 Touchpad          id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_FHD: Integrat           id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_8M: Rear Inte           id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel Virtual Button driver               id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ SYNA7500:00 06CB:780B Pen                 id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=18   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Synaptics T Pad V 01.31 Consumer Control  id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Synaptics T Pad V 01.31                   id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Synaptics T Pad V 01.31 Wireless Radio Control    id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]

I have tried:

1. Installing the synaptics driver
2. Adding in a libinput filter (which made the Synaptics T Pad V 01.31 Touchpad above disappear, but actually made it worse)
3. `xinput set-prop 11 "Device Enabled" 1 (0 followed by 1 as well)
4. `xinput set-prop 16 "Device Enabled" 1 (0 followed by 1 as well)

This is on kernel 4.18.0-15-generic, but I have also tried going back to 4.17 and it doesn't work, either. I can't roll back to any earlier versions of xserver-xorg-input-* because they don't appear to be available.

I suspect that the touchpad may be programattically disabled (which would explain the X in the F7 status) but I don't know how to programatically re-enable it.

How do I get my touchpad back?

I want to peer connect between two bridges in my netplan configuration.

Under iproute2 the commands would be:

ip link add dev vethb1 type veth peer name vethb2       
brctl addif br1 vethb1
brctl addif br2 vethb2

I'm porting from OpenVSwitch, so it's possible I'm thinking about this the wrong way.

Unfortunately, the netplan documentation doesn't seem to cover all device types, particularly veth. Although it does mention veth in terms of matching, so there's some part of netplan that must know what it means.

I've tried doing a vlan with no id but it expects an id.

Creating an ethernet doesn't seem to accept a type or peer attribute. Networkd calls this kind but that isn't an accepted key either.

What does a veth peer link look like in a netplan config?

While looking to compile OpenJDK from source, the newest General Availability version (OpenJDK 10.0.1) insists on OpenJDK 9 or 10. JDK 11, however, is not due to be released until September 2018.

However, to my surprise, when I do apt search openjdk the result is:

...
openjdk-11-jdk - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK)
...
openjdk-8-jdk - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK)
...

No OpenJDK 9 or 10!

And wait, is that OpenJDK 11? Maybe a Beta release? Nooo....

So I looked at apt show openjdk-11-jdk:

Package: openjdk-11-jdk
Version: 10.0.1+10-3ubuntu1
...

Why has OpenJDK 10 been packaged as openjdk-11-*??

Trying to dual-boot install 18.04 on a machine with Windows 10 already installed. The installer didn't give me the option to shrink windows and dual-boot, so I went to manually repartition.

I tried to shrink the existing Windows 10 NTFS partition in gparted but there's an exclamation mark with a warning.

The warning says that it needs ntfs-3g installed, but it already is.

gparted says its installed and can shrink.

I made sure that Windows had fast startup disabled and had been shut down properly.

I also ran chkdsk /f C: and rebooted and then shut down properly before trying again.

And to prove that it's able to load, I manually mounted the partition!

I also tried resizing with gnome-disks but it goes grey as though it's opening a dialog and freezes until I press alt-F4.

So, in summary:

• ntfs-3g enabled
• Windows fastboot disabled
• chkdsk /f C: successful
• Windows shut down properly (no hibernate)
• partition mountable from Ubuntu

What else could be stopping it from being able to be shrunk?

I have installed both exfat-fuse and exfat-utils.

However, when I go to gparted, and attempt to format a partition as exFAT, the exfat option is greyed out when attempting to create or format a partition.

Why is this so? How can I use gparted to create an exfat partition?

We recently migrated to Samba 4.4.16 (from 3.5.15).

Our configuration contains a number of shares which have group access only (@group or +group) which map to unix groups. Here's an excerpt of the config:

[global]
bind interfaces only = yes
interfaces = lo eth0
netbios name = OURSERVER
server string = Office Intranet (OURSERVER) Server Version %v
workgroup = WORKGROUP
domain master = yes
preferred master = yes
os level = 34
dns proxy = no
log level = 3
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 50
nmbd bind explicit broadcast = No
printcap name = cups
name resolve order = wins hosts
passdb backend = tdbsam:/etc/samba/passdb.tdb
obey pam restrictions = yes
passwd chat debug = yes
unix password sync = yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:*        %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
pam password change = yes
security = user
encrypt passwords = yes
map to guest = Bad User
wins support = Yes
idmap config * : backend = tdb
cups options = raw
use client driver = Yes
hosts allow = 127.0.0.1 192.168.0.0/24
case sensitive = no
invalid users = root
username map script = /bin/echo
restrict anonymous = 2

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
path = /data/home/%u
hide files = /.*/
veto files = /.*/lost+found/bin/httpd/public/.vacation.*/.forward/
follow symlinks = No
create mask = 0755
read only = No

[Stuff]
comment = All your base are belong to us
path = /data/shares/stuff
hide files = /.*/
veto files = /.*/lost+found/bin/httpd/public/.vacation.*/.forward/
follow symlinks = No
access based share enum = Yes
create mask = 0770
directory mask = 0770
force group = entitled
force user = docman
read only = No
valid users = @entitled

This works on smbclient -L OurServer:

$ smbclient -L OURSERVER
WARNING: The "syslog" option is deprecated
Enter WORKGROUP\funster's password: 
Domain=[OURSERVER] OS=[Windows 6.1] Server=[Samba 4.4.16]

Sharename       Type      Comment
---------       ----      -------
homes           Disk      Home Directories
funster         Disk      Home Directories
Stuff           Disk      All your base are belong to us
IPC$            IPC       IPC Service (Office Intranet (OURSERVER) Server Version 4.4.16)

Server               Comment
---------            -------

Workgroup            Master
---------            -------
WORKGROUP            

But not on smbtree or Nautilus because neither ask for a password by default:

$ smbtree
WORKGROUP
    \\OURSERVER                 Office Intranet (OURSERVER) Server Version 4.4.16

However:

$ smbtree -Ufunster%p4ssw0rd
WORKGROUP
    \\OURSERVER                 Office Intranet (OURSERVER) Server Version 4.4.16
        \\OURSERVER\funster         Home Directories
        \\OURSERVER\IPC$            IPC Service (Office Intranet (OURSERVER) Server Version 4.4.16)
        \\OURSERVER\homes           Home Directories
        \\OURSERVER\Stuff           All your base are belong to us

Without restrict anonymous = 2, anonymous logins are allowed, BUT Nautilus and smbtree shows only the homes share even though the others are accessible directly.

How can I force Nautilus and smbtree to ask for a password so that it sees the group shares?

Gnome Disks (gnome-disks - formerly known as palimpsest) provides SMART and some benchmarking information. From what I gather, it used to be based on a command-line tool udisks but these projects appear to have merged.

The new Gnome Disks utility appears only to show average results from the benchmarking tests. From screenshots, previous versions of palimpsest appear to have maximum and minimum responses in the results as well.

I'm interested in all results in the benchmarking - specifically I'm trying to find disks that are having a negative effect on users by weeding out disks with slow I/O in the worst-case. I also want to map this data over time so I need to be able to process/export it in a programmatic way.

I looked at udisksctl (in the udisks2 package) but it appears just to be general information on the disks and some SMART information.

Is there a command-line tool which runs the old udisks style benchmarking report and returns minimums and maximums as well?

This is an extension (not a dupe) of How to disable non-ssl connection on Apache 2.2

Like the above question, I have:

Added a virtual host config /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com.conf with an SSL cert.

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost example.com:443>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        SSLEngine on

        SSLCertificateFile  /my/certs/mydomain.com.cert
        SSLCertificateKeyFile   /my/certs/mydomain.com.key
        SSLCACertificateFile    /my/certs/myprovider.ca

        <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </FilesMatch>
        <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
                SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
        </Directory>


    </VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

Then:

1. Run a2enconf ssl to enable SSL.
2. Run a2ensite example.com to enable my domain.
3. Run a2dissite 000-default to disable the host default site.
4. Run a2dissite default-ssl to disable the host default ssl site.

What should remain is only the site https://example.com/

However, I can also access http://example.com/ (non-SSL) which is an unexpected feature.

The other question's answers are to simply disable port 80 by commenting out Listen 80 but that means that other virtual hosts won't be able to specify port 80.

Why does Apache2 appear to accept port 80 when no virtual host specifies it and what is the correct way without disabling port 80 altogether?

Currently, whenever I git pull or git push to a http(s) repository, I get the following:

$ git pull
Username for 'https://gitrepos.reposdomain.com': [email protected]
Password for 'https://[email protected]@gitrepos.reposdomain.com': 

This is ok for infrequent use, but starts to become really annoying very quickly. Unfortunately, switching to ssh is not an option in this case.

I've read that earlier versions of git provided a credential "store" and "cache", but that this wasn't advised because it stored the password in plaintext.

BUT

Newer versions of git apparently store git credentials in the gnome-keyring, but it has to be set up correctly.

I've tried following other (non-Ubuntu) answers on SO to get this to work (namely this one), but I'm still presented with the username and password prompt.

What is the correct and safest way to store git credentials for http(s) repos and how does one make them work on Ubuntu?

I have an NFS share that I need to connect to (for reasons of speed).

If I try to connect through Nautilus->Connect to Server, I get the error "This file server type is not recognised."

I have looked for a Nautilus plugin and only found nfs-lan, which appears not to have been touched since 2013, and which also appears to fail a number of package checks.

Now, these look minor issues, but it's not a good sign.

Is there any better option for mounting NFS shares through Nautilus?

Even though Firefox is the default browser on the desktop version of Ubuntu, there's another option included in System->Default Applications.

Enabling this option brings up "Ubuntu Web Browser" with no titlebar menu and only a number of options in a small menu.

However, there's no information about what this browser is, what web engine it's based on, or even who built it (obviously we can presume it's Canonical, but then, why not say that somewhere?). There's no "About" in the menu, either.

The process appears to be called webbrowser-app. Calling webbbrowser-app --help yields some command-line options, but still no actual information.

$ webbrowser-app --help
Usage: webbrowser-app [-h|--help] [--fullscreen] [--maximized] [--inspector] [--app-id=APP_ID] [--new-session] [URL]
Options:
  -h, --help         display this help message and exit
  --fullscreen       display full screen
  --maximized        opens the application maximized
  --inspector[=PORT] run a remote inspector on a specified port or 9221 as the default port
  --app-id=APP_ID    run the application with a specific APP_ID
  --new-session      do not restore open tabs from the last session

And there's no man page either:

$ man webbrowser-app
No manual entry for webbrowser-app
See 'man 7 undocumented' for help when manual pages are not available.

Where is the information on this software?

On my up-to-date 15.04 VV Ubuntu boxes, I tried to download some VMs.

wget -c https://az412801.vo.msecnd.net/vhd/VMBuild_20141027/VirtualBox/IE8/Linux/IE8.Win7.For.Linux.VirtualBox.zip
--2015-07-31 09:43:28--  https://az412801.vo.msecnd.net/vhd/VMBuild_20141027/VirtualBox/IE8/Linux/IE8.Win7.For.Linux.VirtualBox.zip
Resolving az412801.vo.msecnd.net (az412801.vo.msecnd.net)... 192.229.145.200, 2606:2800:10c:249:f81:1c8d:1178:1364
Connecting to az412801.vo.msecnd.net (az412801.vo.msecnd.net)|192.229.145.200|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 206 Partial Content
Length: 3985616237 (3.7G), 3971559386 (3.7G) remaining [application/x-zip-compressed]
Saving to: 'IE8.Win7.For.Linux.VirtualBox.zip’

IE8.Win7.For.Linux.   0%[                      ]  14.03M  1.29MB/s   in 0.5s   

2015-07-31 09:43:29 (1.29 MB/s) - Read error at byte 14712199/3985616237 (error:1408F119:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_RECORD:decryption failed or bad record mac). Retrying.

I also tried without the '-c' (continue) option, but it gets the same error.

In desperation, I've even tried downgrading the SSL security:

$wget -c --secure-protocol=SSLv2 https://az412801.vo.msecnd.net/vhd/VMBuild_20141027/VirtualBox/IE8/Linux/IE8.Win7.For.Linux.VirtualBox.zip
--2015-07-31 12:52:17--  https://az412801.vo.msecnd.net/vhd/VMBuild_20141027/VirtualBox/IE8/Linux/IE8.Win7.For.Linux.VirtualBox.zip
OpenSSL: unimplemented 'secure-protocol' option value 1
Please report this issue to [email protected]
Aborted (core dumped)

• I've used wget to download from this site before.
• It only seems to be happening on this website.
• Attempts to download from other SSL-enabled sites work.
• Tried different machines, tried mainline kernel, same behaviour.

Is this the first problem a bug in wget, Ubuntu's SSL library, or the server's SSL library and how does one get around it safely?

My new Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140, running Ubuntu 15.04, developed a fault. It appears that all keyboard input fails after the login screen. The mouse functions normally.

The catch is that the on-screen keyboard doesn't work either, and neither does keyboard input from synergyc, so I'm guessing it's some kind of unity input module that's gone awry.

However, other input events such as the volume buttons appear to be functioning normally.

I've tried a complete shut down and cold boot but no go. :-(

Luckily, I have an ssh server open, so I can investigate further.

$ dmesg | grep keyboard
[    1.060171] input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input2
$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep 'keyboard'
[     5.211] (**) Video Bus: Applying InputClass "evdev keyboard catchall"
[     5.213] (II) evdev: Video Bus: Configuring as keyboard
[     5.214] (**) Power Button: Applying InputClass "evdev keyboard catchall"
[     5.214] (II) evdev: Power Button: Configuring as keyboard
[     5.216] (**) Integrated_Webcam_FHD: Applying InputClass "evdev keyboard catchall"
[     5.264] (II) evdev: Integrated_Webcam_FHD: Configuring as keyboard
[     5.264] (**) Integrated_Webcam_8M: Applying InputClass "evdev keyboard catchall"
[     5.264] (II) evdev: Integrated_Webcam_8M: Configuring as keyboard
[     5.270] (II) config/udev: Adding input device AT Translated Set 2 keyboard (/dev/input/event2)
[     5.270] (**) AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Applying InputClass "evdev keyboard catchall"
[     5.270] (II) Using input driver 'evdev' for 'AT Translated Set 2 keyboard'
[     5.270] (**) AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: always reports core events
[     5.270] (**) evdev: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Device: "/dev/input/event2"
[     5.270] (--) evdev: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Vendor 0x1 Product 0x1
[     5.270] (--) evdev: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Found keys
[     5.270] (II) evdev: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Configuring as keyboard
[     5.270] (II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard" (type: KEYBOARD, id 12)
[     5.271] (**) Dell WMI hotkeys: Applying InputClass "evdev keyboard catchall"
[     5.271] (II) evdev: Dell WMI hotkeys: Configuring as keyboard

To be clear, this is not a duplicate of the "Keyboard stopped working" questions I looked at because:

• All keyboards worked perfectly fine yesterday
• It works at startup
• It works during/after GRUB
• It works during the login screen
• The problem exists after a cold boot (so not a suspend issue)
• It affects all keyboards (USB, bluetooth, on-device "windows" key, onscreen, and synergyc), so it's not a keyboard switch issue

What else could be giving this symptom?

I have a clean installation of Ubuntu 12.04 Server. I would like to find the UUID for a network connection. How do I find this?

ifconfig -a does not list it:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1e:67:6a:78:a8  
          inet addr:192.168.50.18  Bcast:192.168.50.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21e:67ff:fe6a:78a8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:572287 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:70324 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:222908307 (222.9 MB)  TX bytes:7982096 (7.9 MB)
          Interrupt:16 Memory:c2300000-c2320000 

nmcli is not installed (because this is Ubuntu server):

user@server# nmcli
The program 'nmcli' is currently not installed.  You can install it by typing:
apt-get install network-manager

From a desktop install, I can do:

user@desktop# nmcli c list
NAME                      UUID                                   TYPE              TIMESTAMP-REAL                    
Wired connection 2        d00a6778-80d6-4812-ad54-041de24e47fe   802-3-ethernet    Mon 16 Dec 2013 12:20:09 EST      
Wired connection 1        4fb95570-1922-495a-b498-846b7a6b0655   802-3-ethernet    Tue 17 Dec 2013 11:20:03 EST      
miwifi                    f3182ff5-81c2-44c4-9c4b-d3a1f0a550e9   802-11-wireless   never   

How do I find it when network-manager isn't installed? Surely I don't have to install network-manager?

Back when I was using gnome I had a number of quick shortcuts to various applications with custom switches tucked away in "drawers". It meant a two-click distance to things like starting and stopping servers, or gaining a shell in a particular server.

Is there an equivalent to this in Unity?

I've tried creating desktop icons, but they always seem to get bundled together on the unity bar, making the tooltip misleading and difficult to find a currently running shell on a particular server. (e.g. The tooltip always lists the name of the first server called as a shell, and separate to shells called from the unity bar.)

I've heard that I can create special commands that enable me to right-click an icon in the unity bar, is that the better solution to this?

Ideally, I'd like to be able to visually select an icon, since each one of my servers has it's own unique icon anyway for this sort of thing.