xfce4 + kiosk mode

Posted on October 8, 2007
Filed Under linux | 2 Comments

Additional to my previous post where I’ve mentioned about LTSP setup and xfce4, I’d like to post a little about how we’ve setup xfce4.

Following this info (http://wiki.xfce.org/kiosk_mode), we’ve setup xfce4 in “kiosk” mode, which means standard xfce4-panel through-out the system for all non-wheel users.

root@server~# cat /etc/xdg/xfce4/kiosk/kioskrc
[xfce4-panel]
CustomizePanel=%powerusers,foo

[xfce4-session]
CustomizeSplash=ALL
CustomizeChooser=ALL
CustomizeLogout=ALL
CustomizeCompatibility=%wheel
Shutdown=%wheel
CustomizeSecurity=NONE

Now, only those users in “wheel” group can customize their xfce4-panel items, the rest of the users will get the standard configuration files from /etc/xdg/xfce4/panel/*

First we had some problems trying to get this standards to work, i don’t know why, but we could not grasp the idea of “kiosk” mode, and were trying to add customized configuration files into $HOME/.config/xfce4/panel/* and were wandering why our custom panel is not there on login…

Later we understood that by creating “kioskrc” file, we’ve forced the xfce4 not to read $HOME/.config/xfce4/panel/* but read /etc/xdg/xfce4/panel/*

Eventually (today) we’ve all that to behave as we wished. You can see below how all that will/should look like:


synack@xcpmd /etc/xdg/xfce4/panel $ ls
actions-12.rc launcher-9.rc separator-6.rc
launcher-10.rc orageclock-11918073222.rc systray-4.rc
launcher-11918071840.rc panels.xml tasklist-3.rc
launcher-11918072271.rc separator-11915433711.rc xfce4-menu-5.rc
launcher-7.rc separator-11918074303.rc
launcher-8.rc separator-13.rc

Comments

2 Responses to “xfce4 + kiosk mode”

  1. Openstep on November 24th, 2008 11:42 am

    Hi,

    I am about to deploy an LTSP server in a school, where XFCE and locked down profiles are ideal.
    However I can not get XFCE to show a previously created desktop/panel?

    What am I doing wrong?

    I would like to create a setup, and then have all the users get the same one on login.

    Many thanks

  2. admin on November 28th, 2008 6:12 am

    Well, all you need to do:

    1. Login as a normal user
    2. Customize panel settings
    3. Copy all those customizations into /etc/xdg/xfce4/panel/
    4. Customize /etc/xdg/xfce4/kiosk/kioskrc accordingly

    Now, all those users who are NOT allowed as per /etc/xdg/xfce4/kiosk/kioskrc configuration, will have default panel

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