Upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Every time Ubuntu releases a LTS version that’s the time I spend time on a version upgrade. Spending few hours on upgrading and some underhood stuff once every six months is not for me, so I decided to stick to LTS.

Encrypted Volumes: Header Backup is Important!

So I’ve been reading more on cryptsetup man page and found this interesting excerpt:

If the header of a LUKS volume gets damaged, all data is permanently lost unless you have a header-backup. If a key-slot is damaged, it can only be restored from a header-backup or if another active key-slot with known passphrase is undamaged. Damaging the LUKS header is something people manage to do with surprising frequency. This risk is the result of a trade-off between security and safety, as LUKS is designed for fast and secure wiping by just overwriting header and key-slot area.

Expanding a LUKS encrypted disk image

Yesterday I wrote about How to create an encrypted LUKS disk image.

Today I wanted to experiment more with it. I wanted to try resizing a LUKS volume, and after one failed attempt I found a way. If you still have the disk image of yesterday’s example, just follow me. 🙂

How to create an encrypted LUKS disk image

This could be a great alternative if you have used TrueCrypt encrypted volumes.

I’ve been a TrueCrypt lover for a long time, even after it was allegedly killed. But now I’m starting to think that it’s not a good option for long term safekeeping of my memories. At time point in a future release of Linux if dependencies for TrueCrypt stop working that’s death to my archives.  Fortunately we have LUKS since 2004! After using LUKS for a couple of years I think it’s very reliable.

[Linux] Tip for heavy users of Ctrl + R

After a lengthy JIRA tip, I’m about to blog a Keyboard Ninja tip for users who do a lot of Ctrl + R thingy to navigate Bash history.

Wunderlist Today wallpaper for Ubuntu

Wunderlist again. Currently this is the only Microsoft thing that I use – apart of Windows servers involved in my DevOps job.

Wunderlist for Ubuntu

Wunderlist killed its app for Ubuntu long time back.

And then it was bought by Microsoft, so I hardly think there will be a Linux app ever again. For a long time I didn’t use Wunderlist, but I thought of giving it a try once again. I figured out that pinning Wunderlist tab on Firefox works to some extent.

උබුන්ටුවේ සිංහලෙන් ලියමු

උබුන්ටු වලට සිංහල දාන හැටි? කැම්පස් කාලෙ ලියාපුවනේ…! 😀

හරි. එහෙනම් චූටි ළමයි ටික ඉස්සෙල්ලම අහගන්න. මීට අවුරුදු හත අටකට කලින් ඔය ළමයි ඉස්කෝලෙ යන කාලෙ උබුන්ටු වලට සිංහල දානව කියන්නෙ වෙනමම ගේමක්. ඒ දවස් වල අපි අළුතින් වින්ඩෝස් හෝ ලිනක්ස් ඉන්ස්ටෝල් කළ ගමන්ම ඊළඟට දාගන්න එක තමා සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් කියන්නෙ. ඊටත් කලින්, වින්ඩෝස්, ලිනක්ස් ඔය ඔක්කොටම සම්මතයක් විධියට සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් එක ගේන්න විවිධ බාධක මැද තවත් පිරිසක් තමන්ගෙ කාලය, ශ්‍රමය කැප කරමින් ගොඩක් මහන්සි වුණා. තවත් පිරිසක් සිංහල භාවිතය ප්‍රචලිත කරන්න ලොකු වෙහෙසක් දැරුවා. ඒකෙ ප්‍රතිපලයක් විධියට, අද වෙනකොට අළුතින් වින්ඩෝස් හෝ ලිනක්ස් ඉන්ස්ටෝල් කළාම සිංහල ඉන්ස්ටෝල් කරන්න ඕනෙ කියන එක අමතක වෙන තරමටම අද අපි සිංහල භාවිතා කරනවා. වෙන එකක් තියා, සිංහලෙන් ලියන එක පොෂ් මදි වගේ දැනිච්ච අයත් අද අපූරුවට සිංහලෙන් ලියනවා. සිංහල තමා දැන් ට්‍රෙන්ඩ් එක! 🙂

Cisco AnyConnect VPN for Ubuntu Xenial?

Post-upgrade first World problems are here.

A friend who recently upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus LTS told me that Cisco AnyConnect VPN doesn’t work anymore. So I wanted to give it a try.

Getting old Truecrypt to work with Xenial

Truecrypt died two years back.

Despite their warning I continued to use it for encrypting some of my data, because I believe Truecrypt was rather killed by a hidden hand – not actually because of any unfixable vulnerabilities.