Restricted kiosk.

[lordnibbla]

So here's the situation.

I manage a pizza restaurant where we make deliveries.
There is a computer that we let our drivers use to look up locations.
About a year ago the computer (running xp) got a virus, and since then I have formatted, reinstalled xp, and dissalowed the personal use of our computer.
As well I disabled the hdd boot in bios and made a live cd of knoppix (doesn't) include flash support out of the box) to further discourage its use for anything other than google maps.


Still I wish to take this method to another level.


Is there a way to make a custom (knoppix, bartpe, any other linux) live cd or usb boot that:


-Restricts web browsing to google maps or other maps services.
-Has flash installed.
-Has nothing but the essentials for browsing installed
-Possibly has password protected potential to unlock full capability.


Now you guys may think I'm a hardass for implementing this kind of deterrent, but the idea came from the owner ;P. Still its fun for me to do projects like this.

Any ideas or suggestions welcome.

 

[lxskllr]

Checkout this page...

http://www.mahalo.com/answers/im-using-ubuntu-810-how-do-i-block-all-websites-except-a-few

 

[lordnibbla]

Thanks lxskllr.
So, I did some googling just now and found this too:
link

It explains how to make a live cd of an already installed distro.

So if I understand correctly, I need to install fresh to an hdd and then customize as I wish (and block sites per you instruction page) and make a bootable cd.

Should be a fun project this coming week

Thanks.

 

[lord_emperor]

OpenSUSE has the capability to build a bootable CD with just about anything you want.

http://susestudio.com/

 

[lordnibbla]

I like that too. I looked at the opensuse studio site and it was helpful in creating a minimal live cd, but I still beleve I would need to install it and change the settings and then make another live cd..

There is an option to configure the network settings manually before creating the live cd, but there is strangely no option for a custom dns for using opendns to restrict web access.

There is another route with the susestudio of adding(editing) the files like described in the second post's link to only allow google maps, but I suppose for that I would need a copy of the files described in the post.

I think that I'm going to install > configure > create livecd.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/im-using-ubuntu-810-how-do-i-block-all-websites-except-a-few

 

[lordnibbla]

I just wanted to update on the solution that I ended up using:

Microsoft shared computer toolkit.
Very effective for managing user privileges. Even allows for a secret login prompt for the admin account. Doesn't allow changes and doesn't save any changes. I used this in combination with firefox plugins to block all sites except gooogle maps, mapquest etc.. and I'm very satisfied with te results.

There is an updated version for Windows 7 called steady state I believe.

 

[MrColin]

Now you guys may think I'm a hardass for implementing this kind of deterrent

Not even a little bit. Its called privilege separation and its crucial to all kinds of security, not just computers.

I was kind of hoping we'd get you using a linux distro, but it looks like you have things handled. I would advise against flash on a live cd as it requires to be updated every week or two as it seems to be pretty exploitable.