Solved Kiosk mode software?

[Digger12]

Hi Gents,

long story short - My friend owns a bar that lets customers use a shared laptop to play YouTube music.

Laptop got stolen last night and he has asked if I could help out and let him borrow my personal laptop for a night or two.

So is there an easy way I could temporarily enable a kiosk mode that would only let them access YouTube and nothing else?

I know about guest account with parental controls but still feel that this would leave my system to exposed.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Personally Digger I would try anything like that even if it were possible. I don't know of any way to allow access to only one website in any case.

 

[Digger12]

Personally Digger I would try anything like that even if it were possible. I don't know of any way to allow access to only one website in any case.

Would or wouldn't? In a pinch I would let them access the whole net but I don't want them prying into my stuff or changing anything. I think think it's possible to set up a stand alone machine this way but I want a temporary fix.

Maybe not possible.

 

[z3r010]

Take out the hard drive and run the system from a linux live CD? it doesn't solve the youtube only bit but that way no matter what they did it wouldn't harm your stuff.

http://www.wioski.com/ may also be worthy a look

 

[Digger12]

Take out the hard drive and run the system from a linux live CD? it doesn't solve the youtube only bit but that way no matter what they did it wouldn't harm your stuff.

http://www.wioski.com/ may also be worthy a look

That my friend is a great idea. I've tried Linux once but very rusty. Any advice on a very easy version for a quick setup?

 

[z3r010]

I've not used Linux in years myself but if you google Linux Live CD there are plenty to try.

 

[Digger12]

Thought I would post to say it didn't work. Seems like the live CD needs the HDD to mount to. Makes sense. Oh well was worth a try.

Edited to add - I think I'm wrong. Google tells me Linux should be able to run in RAM alone. I think its the cheap DVD's I bought. Cant get any of them to verify after burning. A fresh DL and if this fails I'm giving up. Just thought I could help out my friend until he gets back to town with a new laptop.

 

[Dinger95]

Kiosk Lockdown Software

Besides the linux live discs, which were already mentioned.
There are several Windows packages that perform kiosk lockdown for the OS / Browser to limit what actions the users can perform.

If it is purely web content like YouTube, KioWare Lite may be a good option for you.
If the users would be interacting with other Windows applications then something like MicroSoft's SteadyState or Dorian Software's Fortress Desktop may work.

You would still need to deal with physical security, as you mentioned the previous laptop being stolen.

 

[Alejandro85]

For the "Youtube-only" thing you may want to try a firewall, put a very strict outgoing rule that only lets TCP traffic to their IP address and drops everything else.

 

[Computer0304]

You could use a kensington lock if the laptop has one.

 

[whs]

This would be my suggestion. I had made the tutorial for a slightly different purpose, but it would perfectly suit your purpose. And if you follow the tutorials that are linked on the bottom of that page, you can make it look like this. takes me half an hour.