Linux @lemmy.ml Blisterexe @lemmy.zip 5h ago

Looking for a good solution for a hands-free kiosk.

I want to setup a bunch of laptops to be web kiosks, I'll organize my wants into a list so that it's easier to skim:

Open a version of Firefox with the normal ui, tabs and all.
Automatically enters a session with no user input on reboot
Doesn't allow doing anything but interacting with Firefox (kinda obvious, kiosk and all)
Auto-login
Automatic updates, with them being applied on restart
Firefox settings reset on reboot

Nice to haves:

nice Plymouth screen to hide the scary code on startup.
completely block any attempts to change configuration on Firefox
ad-block
easy deployment to a bunch of machines.

If these sound like pretty strict requirements, they are, I'm doing this to attempt to get an internship by making my school's web kiosk laptops not suck (they currently run a janky install of Ubuntu 18.04)

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I'd be glad to add more information.

13 comments

Something like https://porteus-kiosk.org/

Fully Locked down browser, cache cleared on restart, user can't change settings etc
There's no way to srsly prevent a full-bloat browser from messing with its environment. Make a static VM image and reboot it at the beginning of every session.
- There’s no way to srsly prevent a full-bloat browser from messing with its environment.
  
  Can you elaborate on this? I'm curious as to what manner a browser like Firefox could be exploited in order to affect its environment outside of something like a sandbox escape.
  
  Tools:preferences, about:config, file downloads, form prefills, remember password, etc. yes you can try to lock everything but it's too easy to miss something. And then there are outright RCEs. There's just too much attack surface.
Debian with Cage and a systemd unit to check updates on startup
- Debian/ubuntu with cage was what i was leaning towards, given @izax@pawb.social's tips, i think i'll go with that.
ubuntu core has a kiosk example to look at.. i was inspired from it to build and image for http://purl.org/rzr/pinball
- i did, but i couldnt figure out how to get the full firefox ui, and not just a webpage.
  
  And the full docs were locked behind requesting a document as a rep from a company -_-
I would just go with Debian personally since it's not updated very often.

You can add Firefox to startup applications several ways, such as startup apps GUI on any desktop environment.

Most desktop environments have an "automatic login" option you can configure. You can also disable or remove the login manager

You can configure some desktop environments (xfce I know for sure) to not launch the panel. Don't forget to also look up how to disable your TTY hotkeys!

Install the unattended-upgrades package and Debian/Ubuntu will update automatically. I hardly ever have to touch the updates on my Debian machines

You can make Firefox's config directory read only and it won't be able to write to it

Nice to haves:

Plymouth can be installed on Debian, and has a few themes that are simple spinners

You can do this. Look up how to do the policies.json file. Since the Firefox directory will be read only, it won't be able to be changed by the user

I think you can still install add-ons like an ad blocker with policies.json, but not 100% dure

Do a preseed install or similar https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed
- thank you for the long answer, but i looked at the policies.json documentation and it didnt have anything to block the core settings
  
  It also supports about:config settings with the AutoConfig feature. Does this help? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-autoconfig

13 comments