Kiosk mode
Author
Discussion

BliarOut

Original Poster:

72,863 posts

269 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
Although I can use system policies to lock a machine down, I want to REALLY! secure one.

All it wants to do is boot, autologon and access a single web page. That's it.

I can nail the web page down with the proxy that it passes through, but I don't want anyone to alter anything, and I do mean anything. This machine will be sat unmanned in a publicly accessible area. Base unit will be locked away etc.

Any thoughts on the best way to do this, I don't mind using third party products.

Can't remember if the machine is 2K or XP.

Ta

Bodo

12,600 posts

296 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
Should be easy with Linux from a boot-CD and Firefox + kiosk extensions?

BliarOut

Original Poster:

72,863 posts

269 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
Has possibilities... although I would prefer an MS solution as this outfit are in the middle of nowhere and I have to do blind phone support.

Plotloss

67,280 posts

300 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
Set the desktop to be active, displaying the web page you want and then remove the start bar...

rich-uk

1,431 posts

286 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
Set the shell to be IE instead of Explorer.

zumbruk

7,848 posts

290 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
There are zillions of registry settings that allow you to completely nobble NT/XP for kiosk use. That's how ATMs that run NT/XP are configured....

zaktoo

1,401 posts

270 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
Remote support under Linux is a piece of cake - you can just SSH in and fix stuff - no need to yak about it over the phone...

IPTables rules will stop traffic to all but that one site if you like, a squid proxy will further limit the pages on that one site that you will allow the user to access. A simple lightweight window manager and the only executables your user is allowed to run being firefox and the WM stuff will sort most possible issue out very well. Not sure what effect setting the shell of the user to firefox would have, but likely it would be fine. Just use GDM to boot. Of course a LiveCD boot is also a great idea. Plus the cost should be attractive - zero zip nothing nada except your time in setting it up. No more than 2 hours from a brand new box I would guess.

HTH

Ciao

Zak

agent006

12,058 posts

294 months

Friday 10th December 2004
quotequote all
zumbruk said:
ATMs that run NT/XP


, and double