Walk up Internet Kiosk using Linux
Tagged with: boothbox • Internet kiosk • linux • projects • Technical
So I would like to bring up this topic again (I’ve written about this before, once here and another time here) in hopes I can finally complete what I set out to do awhile back. Get Boothbox working on Dell hardware.
Now that I’ve made that statement it’s time for a curve ball. I think I’m going to scrap Boothbox all together. It’s no longer under development and I am having a lot of trouble re-compiling the kernel so it runs on Dell hardware. The lack of support for Boothbox is just killing me.
So here’s my new idea. Create an Ubuntu Server that is fully configurable and have dummy terminal clients that boot from CD and load a terminal session from the Ubuntu server. Being based off Ubuntu means good hardware support and using a distro that is not likely to go away any time soon. The terminal clients would also be secure in having no local storage as no hard drive is needed.
Eventually the terminal clients will need touch screen support and quite a few scripts to run other items and lock down certain apps. Either way, for now I am going to test the waters and see what happens. If it looks like the idea is feasible I might create a SourceForge project and post more info there. We’ll see what happens.
For now I will post updates on my blog for this project. Officially titled: “Kiosk Ubuntu”.
Welcome to my blog! Topics tend to focus on Science and Technology, but I throw in personal stuff too. I hope you enjoy!
March 19th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I have never done something like this myself, but if I were to build it from scratch, I’d look at the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP), various Live builds, PXE boot if applicable, and perhaps even the pen-drive distros.
There are several approaches, like using PCs as terminal server clients or running a distro non-persistently one way or the other. I myself would go out of my way to avoid running client processes on a server, though. Use PXE or a CD to suck down a tailored DSL Live image, say. If you want to get really fancy, use a custom version of bittorrent to ship out the images
March 19th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Hey thanks for the comments Elwed!
I came across LTSP along with about 20 other websites that can hopefully help me in my journey. Thank Science for Mozilla!!
Unfortunately due to my location I can’t use PXE booting. That traffic is watched and blocked and I can’t do much about it. I can handle running multiple client processes on a server because the majority of the traffic is http and it can also be closely monitored through logs. I can essentially create a feedback loop where even though I think I have uninstalled all the terminals, a user may find a way to open one up and now that I have captured that info I can work to block it, etc…
I want to create a system that can be easily upgraded, any package running on the terminal. The easiest way I can think to do this is dummy client, update the package on the server and then reboot the clients. And to add further security the dummy clients will boot from live CD and grab the image from the server, so no local storage is possible.
You obviously think my Linux skills are at some Jedi level of mastery
March 25th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Here’s another (advanced) link that might interest you:
Using pam-mount to create a sandboxed home directory
Note the enclosed reference to Debiosk
March 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Thanks Elwed. I haven’t come across the sandboxed home directory link before.