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What i want is a client that logs in with a web browser full screen and when the user closes it the system shuts down or logs off the user.

So I've been trying to mount a PXEBOOT system for a while now.. after many attempts and according to the topology present i've explored many solutions.. and ended up focusing and getting the best results with LTSP and fifefox with the kiosk addon.

Now i have an ltsp client that when you login firefox pops up fullscreen, based the session on LXDE and added @firefox www.example.com to the /.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart file, managed to write a script that can detect if FF is running, based on the pgrep command, and shut the system down when it closes.. added the script to the /etc/rc.local file (of the client, /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/rc.local and also have the script on the client /opt/ltsp/amd64/usr/scripts/ffclose.sh).

With the command ps aux | grep "ffclose.sh" i can actually verify that the script is running when the client boots. But it doesn't do what i want.

I know that there is the need to give permissions for it to run, so i gave it -x (which allows everyone to run it.. but still nothing happens..)

Ps: I've also tried PXEBOOT Porteus, LTSP --kiosk.. with mixed results, Porteus runs awfully on the client hardware, and LTSP --kiosk actually managed to make it boot with a FF fullscreen but every time i configure a system this way i can't access the internet (tried it on Ubuntu 12 and 14 with the same result)

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I recently set up a system like that, but my requirement was slightly different - I wanted the system to be very simple and (fairly) impossible to mess with by general public. I wanted the system to be ready to respond to input so the question of having someone wait to boot was non existent. I described my setup here: How to configure kiosk with Wayland / Xorg? - when I started it took me nearly 2 days to get it ready; now I should be able to do this in 2 hours. In my setup the right mouse button does not work and user can do only one key combination which shuts down the system - that combination is for receptionists, store managers to use, not for regular users. You could have the setup where your script is executed every 10 seconds via cron and checks for FF running (even though I would suggest using surf - only left mouse button works as per this setup) and as a fallback the store manager comes and executes the key combination. Both the script and the key combo would point to /usr/bin/systemctl reboot. That is if your distro uses systemd (which most new distributions do). The nice bit about this setup is that it is very robust and might be hard to hack for average script kiddie. If you need help with your script, you should include it in your question. Best of luck.

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  • Oh thxs! well this has been a rough ride.. had never used linux before.. and trying to assemble a system like this.. eheh do feel like i learned a lot. So far only managed to get partially functional systems.. numerous failled PXEBOOT's, a few images of LTSP with ff fullscreen no internet (with the --kiosk option on build), linux server LTSP with a startx full screen chrome, the server perfect, the client boots to a gray screen with the mouse pointer.. eh a shame i don't understand that much about this,since i think and feel that im really close, just missing some detail..
    – Miguel P.
    Commented Mar 2, 2017 at 15:00
  • Hmm, gray screen is just unconfigured X window manager. I've been with linux for well over 10 years and it is good and rewarding. But I remember that I set myself to do some projects initially which were too difficult - some of them are more suitable for network admin with good deal of work experience. Do you have the resources to manage your LTSP systems once you set this up? It might also help if you described your situation - what it is you are trying to do. Context whether you are setting up business internet cafe or a home project, etc
    – r0berts
    Commented Mar 2, 2017 at 15:14

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