Re: Loading X w/only netscape
On Mon, Jun 19, 2000 at 07:16:27PM -0700, nate@firetrail.com wrote
> I would like to setup an account on my system..
>
> but when a user logs in (via KDM) if possible i don't want it to load a
> windowmanager and all i want it to load is netscape, also i want it to log
> back out when netscape exits.. is this possible?
>
> right now i have a user that logs in using afterstep (i can't seem to get
> .xinitrc to override kdm's settings) and modified the autoexec to load
> netscape on the special page it should be on but i can't get it to logout
> afterwards i just put big text in the background that says hit
> CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE to logout. i also chsh'd the user to /dev/null so they
> can't get a shell(not that security is really an issue right now).
>
> this is basically so someone can enter a generic login and have the
> machine show this website when im not around to do it for them.
>
This is basically a bit of a security hole, unless you can and
do nail down Netscape's configuration pretty tight.
Users who want to escape Netscape can probably (e.g.) fiddle with mime
types/helper applications to give themselves an xterm or window manager,
so it's probably not a good idea unless you trust your users.
If you want to stop people mucking about in that way, you
may want to consider using Mosaic (after ensuring that it renders your
pages satisfactorily), as it has a 'kiosk' mode that is intended
for this kind of application.
As for *how*, if you can get KDM to use ~/.xsession it should just
be a question of using an xsession like
#!/bin/sh
/path/to/netscape http://my.host/url
John P.
--
huiac@camtech.net.au
john@huiac.apana.org.au
http://www.mdt.net.au/~john Debian Linux admin & support:technical services
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