OpenKiosk 2.0 client for X11

Summary

The KDE/X11 client of OpenKiosk is a KDE kicker applet that requires at least KDE 3.x. Its function is very similar to the Windows client. Please read the Windows client documentation for some overview of its features.

Requirements:

Important! Before you proceed in installing this program, you should create or assign a separate non-root UNIX account for this client. Future kiosk sessions will be running under that user account in single-user machines and multi-user installations will need this account to propagate the settings to the rest of the users.

Quick Installation Procedures:

  1. While logged in as root, create a user account for this client.
  2. Download and untar the client tarball in a temporary directory. Enter this directory and read the INSTALL file on how to install the applet in your KDE system folder. (Basically this means the standard ./configure, make, make install...)
  3. Login as the user created on step 1 and add the client to KDE's kicker. Right click on any blank area on kicker and select "Add -> Applet -> OpenKiosk Client" from the menu.
  4. When the client is run for the first time, it will present you with its configuration tool, kiosksetup. To prevent the settings from being modified by anyone, kiosksetup needs to be run as root. Provide the root password when prompted.
  5. Fill up the values and click save settings. Online help is provided by clicking the help button.

When you need to change settings or when uninstalling the client, re-run the configuration tool by right-clicking the OpenKiosk client applet on kicker and select "configure" from the menu (when the client is unlocked). You can also run the configuration tool directly by typing "kiosksetup" on a terminal while logged in as root.

Issues

When installing this client on a multi-user server (such as an LTSP system) and the lock-down applet option is checked on the configuration tool, individual users will no longer get their own customized kicker or KDE panel. Instead, the settings and appearance of their kicker will be similar to the one set by the user where the client is initially installed. As a side-effect, all users of the machine will have an OpenKiosk client instance running on their kickers.

While the lock-down applet options is checked, the kicker config file of the OpenKiosk client user account is made system wide. As a result, it is propagated to the rest of the users by KDE. The reason behind this solution is that the KDE Kiosk mode alone is insufficient to prevent malicious users from disabling the applet.

If you want individual kicker settings for your users, it would be better if you install each OpenKiosk client on a single-user machine. Otherwise, you will benefit from this setup if all the users on your system are designated as public kiosk-terminals.