[Kde-kiosk] Large deployments (Was: Experiences with KDE-CVS at LinuxWorldExpo)

[Waldo Bastian]

>* KDE needs to have an easy to configure desktop in "kiosk" mode.
>* KDE needs to have an interface to draw the user configuration
>    for each user from a database (where each single application
>    allowed or denied for a user is defined).
>* KDE needs utilities which make it easy for an administrator to
>    configure, roll out and run 1000 user desktops (a "lost" configuration
>    must be restored within a minute or less).
>* KDE need at the same time to retain the flexibility to have all
>    these 1000 settings different (for different needs).
>* KDE needs to be able to serve the same user profile to a users
>    wherever he logs in (a different physical machine, but the same
>    desktop and user profile).
>
>When 3.1 is out of the door, I will probably make an attempt to
>get this issue tackled by a group of people.

Several people have already responded with solutions that are 
available today. Let me focus on some things that can be worked on 
from a KDE point of view.

The Kiosk framework could benefit from a GUI to set things up. Along 
the same lines it would be great IMO if KControl could be used to 
configure the default settings for _all_ users or for groups of users 
taking advantage of the multiple directories supported by KDEDIRS. 
Another useful ability would be if one could easily move users in and 
out of groups created that way. That's currently not covered by KDE: 
KDE expects KDEDIRS to be set up already when KDE starts, but how it 
gets set is left to the reader^Wuser.

What is needed is a more or less standard way to store somewhere such 
user-specific information: specific per-user 
restrictions/clearances/privileges, the group(s) a user is part of 
and the defintion of such a group in terms of a specific KDEDIRS 
settings. Unlike most personal information, a user's home-directory 
might not be the best place to store this since the user itself is 
not supposed to change it.

Once there is some sort of standard for this (something LDAP based 
comes to mind) it's straightforward to provide a GUI for configuring 
it.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who have already implemented 
solutions like this for their specific situation, I would like to 
invite them to join kde-kiosk@kde.org and share their experiences so 
that we can use that as bases for building an off-the-shelve GUI 
based solution.

Cheers,
Waldo