Locking down guest like Kiosk

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KentUB
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Locking down guest like Kiosk

Post#1 by KentUB » 25 Sep 2014, 23:40

I am currently running several Intel NUC computers in a public library. I can not use a CD or USB, as either option would be stolen in a matter of days, if not hours, been there done that. My only options are a 2.5" hard drive or SD card. These previously ran from an LTSP server using PXE, but we are constantly having issues with this and would like to make the install local. I have looked at the Kiosk edition, however it does not provide the needed functionality.

First priority is that any changes the guest account makes is tossed out upon restart, they can save documents to a flash drive, but not the system. No prompts when booting, this causes mass confusion. They really need only a Web Browser and Libre Office, all other apps just cause mass confusion. Idle timeout with restart would be a real nice addition. We set up a couple of these with Kiosk this week and the amount of static from users over no Word Processor has the staff yelling at me to change it. Google so far has not been my friend on finding anything to suggest how this might be done.

Just to give you an idea of the level of sophistication of our typical user, last week while working over at one branch I watched a person walk up to a computer that was dead and had a sign over the monitor that said "Out of Order". They flipped the sign up and pushed the power button, then went to tell a staff member that the computer was broken. A half hour later someone came in and the number 6 had fallen off the top of one of the the monitors, when she went to make her reservation she asked the staff member what computer was between 5 and 7! However we have kids from the high school constant try to crack our systems or launch hack attempts from the public computers.

If I do not solve this soon I am going to be forced back to Windoze for all computers.

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fanthom
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Re: Locking down guest like Kiosk

Post#2 by fanthom » 26 Sep 2014, 09:06

hi KentUB,

seems that Porteus Kiosk has everything you need except for the Libre Office support and usb persistence. they could be added to kiosk though the commercial 'customized builds' service:
http://porteus-kiosk.org/builds.html
please contact me if you are interested.

if you do not want to go with 'custom builds' then you probably could lock our desktop edition as i know that one user have done that. unfortunately it wont be a straight forward task.

thank you.
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