Need help creating a Red Hat 9 Internet Kiosk

[MountainNetworks]

Hi:

I've installed a lower end workstation with Red Hat 9. The machine has been deployed in a wireless coffee shop. This is the only machine which has been hardwired to the network. Everyone else just brings in a laptop with a wireless card.

For this Linux workstation, the goal is to make it an internet kiosk. I haven't installed any additional software so I want it to work with the version of mozilla that comes out of the box.

So, I had the following goals:


When the machine boots up, it should automatically log itself in as "guest," and go to the desktop without requiring a login dialog.

It should be possible to pull the plug on the machine at any time without loss of data: at no time should fsck need to run.

Logging out or rebooting should reset the machine to a default state, clearing out any changes a previous user might have made.

The machine would boot with the internet browser launched, and users would not be able to close the browser.

Any suggestions? Btw..here's what I've tried without success:

http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Howto/Kiosk-HOWTO.html

Thanks...

 

[thedaver]

Pulling the plug at any time is inherently very non-linux/unix. You should run a journalling filesystem, but at some point the boot process will require some attention.

Probably more appropriate is a terminal services or server-based console solution. VLC is what I believe is the correct direction for this.... At any rate, don't trust users to not fsck with your kiosk. Just run a terminal services client on a bootable NIC and you're golden.

Surfinbox.com Business Internet Services - National Dialup, DSL, T-1 and more.

http://www.surfinbox.com/business/

 

[MountainNetworks]

It's an issue of money. We don't have any. Sound familiar?

The straight scoop is this... The workstation with Red Hat 9 is a donated workstation. I installed the Red Hat and as such it is a journaling filing system. User's don't have root access so they can't fsck unless they reboot and the OS does it for them.

One of the reasons I picked Linux for this place is because everyone *thinks* they know windows. Linux is still foreign enough to the average person that it freaks them out. Still, there's always a rogue geek out there who thinks their going to be the second coming of Jesus to systems administration.

I'm left with the same question. Is there a simple, easy to configure program with an "installme.sh" program that will make the station an internet only kiosk?

Quite honestly, I'm getting a bit frustrated with the lack of straight answers on this topic...NOT from this group...let me make that clear...but on the subject of kiosking as a whole. I'm about ready to just write a damn kiosk program myself and distribute it. I just don't have the time and don't like reinventing the wheel if I can avoid it.

 

[flugh]

There's probably some HOWTO or other docs on the net about building your own Knoppix-based Live-CD implementation (not that it has to be Knoppix, it's just a pretty mature, well-put together distro IMHO). Maybe look into that, strip out what you don't want or need, then build a live-cd.

I say that like it's really easy. No, I don't know exactly how, but it's where I'd start looking if it was me in your shoes

The disadvantage is if your hardware is too low-end, you may not have the RAM available to run this efficiently. But where there's a will, there's a way!

----
JBR

 

[thedaver]

My reference to fsck was a substitute for the f-word, not the command. The OS will run fsck on reboot whenever it wants to, without any deference to the user at the keyboard.

A Linux GUI client is pretty safe from a kiosk perspective (RedHat in GUI mode at least.) The trouble is securing the box so that ppl cannot drop to a shell, run su or sudo, or run stuff to mess with it...

You can run a cron job to reload some or all of the system from a network connected server so that you could periodically blat out the user account that is in service for the kiosk.

You might be pleasantly surprised at the free options available Freshmeat when you search for "cafe"!!!!!!!!!

http://www.freshmeat.net

Surfinbox.com Business Internet Services - National Dialup, DSL, T-1 and more.

http://www.surfinbox.com/business/

 

[fmiller]

Just download a copy of the Knoppix Linux iso, burn it to a CD, and set your machine to boot from the CD/ROM drive. They can't possibly screw up a read-only CD (just steal it, so keep copies handy).

Also take a look at the Linux Terminal Server project:

http://www.ltsp.org.

Frank Miller
Systems Consultant
FOSSCom

 

[apatterno]

Well, problems such as CD theft can easily be solved by placing the CPU in a locked cabinet. That also solves the bootup/shutdown problem because only the management can do that.

Here's my suggestion:
Use Knoppix CD as mentioned before.

You can change runlevel to 3 (multiuser console mode) in /etc/inittab. Then, edit your xinitrc, removing all windowmanagers and xterms, but only launch twm and mozilla.

Also launch a shell script, which runs in the background and respawns mozilla and twm if they are closed. For example

while true; do
   sleep 30
   if ps -e | grep twm >/dev/null 2>&1
      then :
      else (twm &)
   fi
   if ps -e | grep mozilla >/dev/null 2>&1
      then :
      else (mozilla &)
   fi
done

This will protect people from accidentally closing Mozilla and being unable to get it back.


_{I REALLY hope that helps.}
Will