lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lionel and Jared,

On 02/09/2011 09:23 PM, Jared Norris wrote:

> Lionel has detailed his experience in the attached PDF so if you can 
> please have a quick read (it's only a page or two) and try to help
> him out with his encryption error that would really be appreciated.
> If you can also please ensure you have both the list and Lionel's
> emails in the "to" or "cc" field as I don't know if he is currently
> subscribed to the list and may miss replies if not sent directly to
> him as well.

In my opinion, it is extremely likely that Lionel really did enable an
encrypted home directory for this user at some point in the past.

If I am correct about that, then I am fairly sure this issue is caused
by Launchpad Bug #635698

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lxdm/+bug/635698

which I recently helped test a fix for.

That fix is now released, in package lxdm-0.2.0-0ubuntu3.2

which is now in maverick-updates.

So, my recommendation is that Lionel could

(1) As a test that this really is the issue, log in as the user with the
encrypted home directory, open LXterminal, and run the command

  ecryptfs-mount-private

and then check whether the home directory is now mounted "normally",
i.e. he can see all his files inside the encrypted directory.

(2) If that fixes things, Lionel should then update his copy of lxdm to
version lxdm-0.2.0-0ubuntu3.2 by making sure he has the maverick-updates
repository enabled, and then updating his machine in the usual way (I
don't know whether using Synaptic or using sudo apt-get is "the usual
way" for him).  After this update he should reboot the machine and log
in as the user concerned, and will (hopefully!) then find his encrypted
directory is automatically decrypted for him.

(3) If that does not work, we need to see exactly what error(s) the

  ecryptfs-mount-private

command outputs on his system, before I can (maybe!) offer further ideas.

(4) One lesson to learn: please always make backups, and verify them.
Only backing up when you think something "might" go wrong is not a sound
backup strategy.

I'm not in an ideal position to help with this in an ongoing fashion, as
my next couple of days are likely to be very full, and I'm nowhere close
to Lionel's timezone to try to do any sort of online chat/IRC with him.
 So, if someone else can do that, they would probably have more chance
of being useful and timely.

Hoping this is a start,

Jonathan