Debian with Cage and a systemd unit to check updates on startup
this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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Debian/ubuntu with cage was what i was leaning towards, given @izax@pawb.social's tips, i think i'll go with that.
There's no way to srsly prevent a full-bloat browser from messing with its environment. Make a static VM image and reboot it at the beginning of every session.
There’s no way to srsly prevent a full-bloat browser from messing with its environment.
Can you elaborate on this? I'm curious as to what manner a browser like Firefox could be exploited in order to affect its environment outside of something like a sandbox escape.
Tools:preferences, about:config, file downloads, form prefills, remember password, etc. yes you can try to lock everything but it's too easy to miss something. And then there are outright RCEs. There's just too much attack surface.
I agree. Flatpak could be used to further lockdown what Firefox can do, but it has so much features and complexity that I also expect it to be difficult to successfully lockdown.
I would either start with a product that explicitly has just the features a web-kiosk needs or use something based on ChromeOS, which explicitly has a set of enterprise policies that are there to allow admins to lock down a fleet of Chromebooks as they need.
This is based on the security principle that a system is far more secure if you explicitly allow what you need vs trying to explicitly block or disable all the things you don’t want.
Over time, the features you need to allow your web kiosk needs maybe somewhat static and in your control, while all the features you need to disable in Firefox could be constantly evolving and put of your control if you are keeping Firefox up to date.
ubuntu core has a kiosk example to look at.. i was inspired from it to build and image for http://purl.org/rzr/pinball
i did, but i couldnt figure out how to get the full firefox ui, and not just a webpage.
And the full docs were locked behind requesting a document as a rep from a company -_-
I would just go with Debian personally since it's not updated very often.
- You can add Firefox to startup applications several ways, such as startup apps GUI on any desktop environment.
- Most desktop environments have an "automatic login" option you can configure. You can also disable or remove the login manager
- You can configure some desktop environments (xfce I know for sure) to not launch the panel. Don't forget to also look up how to disable your TTY hotkeys!
- Install the unattended-upgrades package and Debian/Ubuntu will update automatically. I hardly ever have to touch the updates on my Debian machines
- You can make Firefox's config directory read only and it won't be able to write to it
Nice to haves:
- Plymouth can be installed on Debian, and has a few themes that are simple spinners
- You can do this. Look up how to do the policies.json file. Since the Firefox directory will be read only, it won't be able to be changed by the user
- I think you can still install add-ons like an ad blocker with policies.json, but not 100% dure
- Do a preseed install or similar https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed
thank you for the long answer, but i looked at the policies.json documentation and it didnt have anything to block the core settings
It also supports about:config settings with the AutoConfig feature. Does this help? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-autoconfig
that should help, thanks!
edit: Yup, i can use that to reset user preferences on reboot, perfect
Something like https://porteus-kiosk.org/
Fully Locked down browser, cache cleared on restart, user can't change settings etc
I think the best way is using live debian image with Wayland cage. User can change something, but it will be lost on restart. Debian supports plymouth out-of-the-box if enabled in grub.