Firefox fullscreen kiosk machine | ramblings.narrabilis.com

By thomas, 10 December, 2005

Update (2 Dec 2005): kiosk extension is broken, I'm now using a hacked browser.jar (version 1.0.7), I made a few changes to xinitrc-common as well Simple kiosk implementation, not entirely thorough, but enough for our purposes. Machine boots and gdm logs into a user without a password, firefox starts fullscreen and opens our homepage. Simple to implement.

kiosk extension is incomplete, you can open a new browser window and circumvent the chrome security, I changed my browser.jar file to take away this functionality, here is a patch: kiosk.patch browser.jar

kiosk extension

[root@host] # firefox -install-global-extension
/full/path/to/kiosk_browser_symbio_technologies_-1.0-fx-linux.xpi

patched kiosk1.xul to open homepage (add loadOneOrMoreURIs after Startup):
```
cd /usr/lib/firefox-*/extensions/{*}/chrome
patch -p0
```
homepage.patch: --- content/kiosk1.xul.loadHome 2005-11-28 11:21:53.000000000 -0500 +++ content/kiosk1.xul 2005-11-28 11:23:30.000000000 -0500 @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul" - onload="Startup()" onunload="Shutdown()" onclose="return WindowIsClosing();" + onload="Startup();loadOneOrMoreURIs('http://www.ias.edu')" onunload="Shutdown()" onclose="return WindowIsClosing();" contenttitlesetting="true" title="&mainWindow.title;" titlemodifier="&mainWindow.title;"

patched browser.js in browser.jar to redirect file:/// resource:/// and about:/// requests to home page as seen on this site

cd /usr/lib/firefox-*/chrome
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d`
unzip -q browser.jar -d $TMPDIR
pushd $TMPDIR
patch -p0 /usr/local/etc/browser-js-location.patch
zip -q -r -D browser.jar *
popd
rm -rf browser.jar
mv $TMPDIR/browser.jar .
rm -rf $TMPDIR

browser-js-location.patch:

--- content/browser/browser.js_kiosk    2005-11-28 11:11:43.000000000 -0500
+++ content/browser/browser.js  2005-11-28 11:12:43.000000000 -0500
@@ -2857,7 +2857,14 @@
this.setOverLink("", null);

var location = aLocation.spec;
-
+    if (location.match(/^file:/) ||
+       location.match(/^//) ||
+       location.match(/^chrome:/) ||
+       location.match(/^resource:/) ||
+       (!location.match(/^about:blank/) &&
+       location.match(/^about:/))) {
+       loadURI("http://www.math.ias.edu");
+    }
if (location == "about:blank")
location = "";

patch langpacks to open our home page:
#!/bin/sh

FIREFOX_LIBDIR=/usr/lib/firefox-1.0.7

# set homepage to www.math.ias.edu
cd $FIREFOX_LIBDIR/chrome
for i in `ls *.jar`; do
rm -rf locale
LANGPACK=`basename $i .jar`
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d`
unzip -q $LANGPACK.jar -d $TMPDIR
pushd $TMPDIR
perl -pi -e "s|browser.startup.homepage=.*$|browser.startup.homepage=http://www.ias.edu|g;" locale/browser-region/region.properties
zip -q -r -D $LANGPACK.jar *
popd
rm -rf $LANGPACK.jar
mv $TMPDIR/$LANGPACK.jar .
rm -rf $TMPDIR
done

configure gdm to login automaticaly to a specific user, do not give the user a password.
```
useradd kiosk
```
/etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf:
```
AutomaticLogin=kiosk
TimedLogin=kiosk
```

hack xinitrc-common to start metacity and a firefox kiosk window. /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc-common:

--- xinit/xinitrc-common_firefoxonly    2005-11-28 11:48:40.000000000 -0500
+++ xinit/xinitrc-common        2005-11-28 11:52:08.000000000 -0500
@@ -61,3 +61,5 @@
DBUS_LAUNCH=
[ -x /usr/bin/dbus-launch -a -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" ] && DBUS_LAUNCH="/usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session"

+/usr/bin/metacity --sm-disable &
+# remove lock file (incase we crashed)
+/bin/rm -f /home/kiosk/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/lock
+exec firefox -fullscreen -chrome chrome://kiosk1/content/kiosk1.xul

modify localstore.rdf to always start firefox fullscreen this part is manual, startup your machine and wait for firefox to start, this will create the user kiosk's profile dir go to a virtual console and stop gdm

[root@host] # init 3
[root@host] # cd ~kiosk/.mozilla/firefox/*/
[root@host] # chown root localstore.rdf

edit localstore.rdf and set sizemode="maximized"

 rdf:description rdf:about="chrome://kiosk1/content/kiosk1.xul#main-window">
width="610"
height="450"
screenX="89"
screenY="40"
sizemode="maximized" />  /rdf:description>

 rdf:description rdf:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#main-window">
width="610"
height="450"
screenX="89"
screenY="40"
sizemode="maximized" />  /rdf:description>

[root@kiosk]# sed -e 's/(sizemode=\").*\"/1maximized\"/' ~kiosk/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/localstore.rdf