Why does Astrill VPN client have no panel icon and no memory between each runtime?

I just got a new computer and installed version 3.2 of Astrill's VPN client for debian based linux OSes.

It runs fine and created an icon on the desktop, but:

a) there is no panel icon when it starts (and ergo I can't lock it to the panel using the right click menu)

b) I cannot find it when searching using the unity menu

c) each time it starts it acts as if it's freshly installed (asked me to install browser plugin, and enter username and password regardless of whether I'd clicked remember password before)

Disclaimer: I'm documenting this problem and solution so I don't have to re-discover it each time I reinstall Ubuntu. If anyone has a better solution though I'd be happy to see a better answer.

1 Answer

For some reason astrill isn't being registered with unity when it is installed. You can fix this by copying it to /usr/share/applications/ and create a panel icon by dragging the icon to the panel.

Astrill should have created a launcher on the desktop when it installed. If not create the file Astrill.desktop with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Astrill
GenericName=VPN Client
Comment=Browse the Internet safely with Astrill
Exec=/usr/local/Astrill/astrill
Icon=/usr/local/Astrill/astrill.ico
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Application;Network;
Name[en_US]=Astrill

Next copy the file to /usr/share/applications/, change the owner to root and remove group write permissions.

$ sudo cp ~/Desktop/Astrill.desktop /usr/share/applications/
$ sudo chown root:root /usr/share/applications/Astrill.desktop
$ sudo chmod g-w /usr/share/applications/Astrill.desktop
$ ls -l /usr/share/applications/ | grep Astrill
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 314 Jul 10 12:54 Astrill.desktop

After finishing, the last line should be the same with above (with a different time and date obviously). You should also now be able to find Astrill using the unity menu.

To add a panel icon, simply ensure that the Astrill icon on the desktop is executable and drag it onto the panel and launch from this icon.

Hope this helps.