I use truecrypt to encrypt one of my drives and I would want to leave the computer running processes that use information of that drive while I'm not home, I've tried suspending it but everything stops, I've also tried logging out but all processes are closed.
So is locking the computer (Ctrl+Alt+:L) the only possibility of achieving what I want?
Is locking the computer (Ctrl+Alt+L) the only possibility of achieving what I want?
No. Services will still be active when you log out. So you could rewrite those processes to run as a service (if not already available). Or create a script that does what you want to do and include that as a service or crontab job.
I would expect the encryption to be re-actived when you log out(?)
Second: Is the lock screen secure enough to prevent "Mallory" from accessing the encrypted drive?
Well... nothing is secure if someone can physically access your machine. What is preventing someone to reboot the machine by cutting of the power and boot with a live cd and just format your disc?
To make things worse: there is probably a way to circumvent the lock screen. Also reported here. I have not seen a fix for debian/ubuntu so you might want to test if it is possible to do on your machine.
