Thorough Linux Uninstall

p1768095

I need a more complete uninstall procedure than what is currently provided:

• rm -rf ~/.pia_manager/
• rm ~/.local/share/applications/pia_manager.desktop

This removes PIA and cripples my WiFi connectivity. I cannot connect to any WiFi router until I reinstall PIA.

I need to remove PIA completely and reset config files that have been altered until it works properly with Ubuntu 17.xx. It's blocking both web browsing and development.

martouf

while "crippled", try:

sudo apt install --reinstall resolvconf

if that doesn't do it, then

sudo apt remove --purge resolvconf
sudo apt install resolvconf
sudo apt update --fix-missing

OR create a brand-new /etc/resolv.conf file (because it's probably missing) and put in it:

nameserver 8.8.4.4
nameserver 8.8.8.8

OR poke at your system with systemd-resolve --status && systemctl status systemd-resolved

and take action based on what the poking reports.

p1768095

Thank you @martouf! This worked! I'd like to get this straight, so I can also post the solution elsewhere.

By "crippled" or "hosed" - if I manually uninstalled PIA, neither WiFi nor Ethernet would resolve DNS. I could ping a server and see devices on the internal network.

Therefore, I couldn't use apt install, as you recommended.

However, my resolv.conf file had this:

# Generated by NetworkManager
search iTV-3.com
nameserver 127.0.1.1

So I updated to the recommended nameservers.I don't understand why this was changed in the first place? I understand that the 127 nameserver just resolves back to my machine. But why are we using Google's DNS?

This allowed me to get on the network, so I ran the apt commands you recommended.

Finally, I work remote, and I lost a day on this issue. Why wouldn't PIA supply an uninstaller to reconfigure this in a sane way?                                

/David

Max-P

Hi @p1768095

Supplying an uninstaller wouldn't have helped you in this situation. The app normally backups /etc/resolv.conf to /tmp/ when connecting the VPN, and just move the original file back when disconnecting. What happened is that for some reason, the original file is gone, so by the time you went to uninstall the application it was already too late, it was already broken. Having an uninstaller wouldn't have done anything more because that's basically all the app changes on the system already. It's all self-contained in your home directory, so the two rm commands you had above really do remove everything PIA installed.

As for the /etc/resolv.conf, it should have been regenerated automatically the next reboot or the next time you reconnected to your WiFI. This seems to be a bug with Ubuntu itself because I managed to get myself into the same broken resolv situation by upgrading from 17.04 to 17.10 without PIA even being involved: had the generated resolv.conf with 127.0.1.1 in it but NetworkManager somehow failed to start the local DNS server and I had no DNS.

I haven't been able to reproduce since, so that's gonna be tricky to figure out

martouf

yep, my first suggestion was based on "crippled" not being "immobile".  using Google's nameservers is a quick and simple flotation device when you're drowning in the muck of misconfiguration. not necessarily the configuration to keep using forever but enough to get things moving again

Max-P

@martouf Agreed! Dead easy to remember, quick to type in, reliable, no fluff or any alteration in the DNS records that I'm aware of.

p1768095

This is all very helpful. I've seen similar situations crop up on other forums and I've tried to recap these answers elsewhere. Thanks again!