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- The Linux Public Web Browser Mini-HOWTO
- Donald B. Marti Jr. <dmarti@agdia.com>
- v0.01, 2 February 1997
-
- 0. Copyright and Disclaimer
-
- Copyright 1997 Donald B. Marti Jr. This document may be redistributed
- under the terms of the Linux Documentation Project license.
-
- _This is a draft version of this document. It may contain errors.
- Apply these instructions at your own risk. _
-
- This document currently contains information for Netscape Navigator
- only, but I plan to add notes for other browsers too as I get the
- necessary information. If you try this with a different browser,
- please let me know.
-
- 1. Introduction
-
- The basic idea here is to give web access to people who wander by,
- while limiting their ability to mess anything up.
-
- This setup was originally intended for trade shows, but it might be
- applicable other places you want to have a web browser going without
- having to babysit a computer.
-
- Following these instructions does not make your system bulletproof or
- idiot-proof.
-
- 2. Before you begin
-
- 2.1. You need a graphical browser
-
- This document assumes that you already have a running graphical web
- browser, such as Netscape Navigator, on your system. You should have
- permission to use your graphical web browser. If you want to use
- Netscape Navigator in a commercial setting, the only way that I know
- of to get a license is to buy the Caldera distribution "Open Linux
- Base."
-
- 2.2. You need to be able to add an account
-
- If you don't have the right to be root, get the system administrator
- to add the "guest" account and give you ownership of guest's home
- directory. Skip to the "Create or edit the following files" step when
- he or she is done.
-
- 2.3. You need httpd for a stand-alone web browsing station
-
- If you are setting up a web browsing station to run stand-alone,
- without a network connection, you should have httpd working and the
- web documents installed. To tell if this is the case, enter:
-
- lynx -dump http://localhost
-
- You should get the text of the home page on your system.
-
- 3. Add the guest account
-
- As root, run adduser to add a user named guest.
-
- Then enter
-
- passwd guest
-
- to set the password for the guest account. This should be something
- easy to remember, like "guest". You will be telling people this
- password. Don't make it the same as your own password.
-
- Then make guest's home directory owned by you. Enter
-
- chown me.mygroup /home/guest
-
- Replace "me" with your regular username and "mygroup" with your group
- name. (On Red Hat Linux, these will be the same, since every user has
- his or her own group.)
-
- You should now exit and do the rest of the steps as yourself, not
- root.
-
- 4. Create or edit the following files in /home/guest:
-
- 4.1. File name: .bash_login
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- exec startx
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- This means that when guest logs in, the login shell will start up the
- X Window System right away.
-
- 4.2. File name: .Xclients
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- netscape
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- This means that when X starts, guest just gets the web browser, no
- window manager. If you prefer another web browser, do something else.
-
- The file .Xclients should be executable by guest. Enter
-
- chmod 755 /home/guest/.Xclients
-
- to make it so.
-
- 4.3. File name: .xsession
-
- ______________________________________________________________
-
- #!/bin/sh
- netscape
-
- ______________________________________________________________
-
- If you use xdm(1) to log people in, this file should make guest get
- the web browser as if he or she had logged in normally. The file
- .xsession should be executable by guest. Enter
-
- chmod 755 /home/guest/.xsession
-
- to make it so.
-
- 4.4. File name: .Xdefaults
-
- ______________________________________________________________
-
- ! Disable drag-to-select.
- *hysteresis: 3000
-
- ! Make visited and unvisited links the same color by default
- *linkForeground: #0000EE
- *vlinkForeground: #0000EE
-
- Netscape.Navigator.geometry: =NETSCAPE_GEOMETRY
-
- ! Disable some of the keyboard commands.
- *globalTranslations:
-
- ! Mouse bindings: make all mouse buttons do the same thing.
- *drawingArea.translations: #replace \
- <Btn1Down>: ArmLink() \n\
- <Btn2Down>: ArmLink() \n\
- <Btn3Down>: ArmLink() \n\
- ~Shift<Btn1Up>: ActivateLink() \
- DisarmLink() \n\
- ~Shift<Btn2Up>: ActivateLink() \
- DisarmLink() \n\
- ~Shift<Btn3Up>: ActivateLink() \
- DisarmLink() \n\
- Shift<Btn1Up>: ActivateLink() \
- DisarmLink() \n\
- Shift<Btn2Up>: ActivateLink() \
- DisarmLink() \n\
- Shift<Btn3Up>: ActivateLink() \
- DisarmLink() \n\
- <Btn1Motion>: DisarmLinkIfMoved() \n\
- <Btn2Motion>: DisarmLinkIfMoved() \n\
- <Btn3Motion>: DisarmLinkIfMoved() \n\
- <Motion>: DescribeLink() \n\
-
- ______________________________________________________________
-
- This file disables blink tags, drag-to-select, and some of the
- keyboard commands. It also makes all mouse buttons do the same
- thing, hides the menu bar, and makes visited and unvisited links
- the same color, so each visitor gets nice clean blue links, not
- ones that other people have been thumbing through and staining
- purple.
-
- You should replace the NETSCAPE_GEOMETRY in this file with an X
- geometry that looks like this: XxY+0-0, where X is the width of
- your screen and Y is the height of your screen + 32. This will
- position the Netscape menu bar off the top of the screen, so the
- user won't be distracted. For example, if your screen is 800x600,
- the geometry should be 800x632+0-0.
-
- 5. Make a .netscape directory for guest
-
- Enter
-
- mkdir /home/guest/.netscape
-
- Then
-
- chmod 777 /home/guest/.netscape
-
- to copy the configuration files to guest's .netscape directory and
- make it world-writable.
-
- 6. Try it
-
- Log out, then log in as guest.
-
- 7. Changing preferences
-
- Since you won't be able to use the menu bar as guest, you should
- edit guest's preferences manually if you need to change them, or
- change your own preferences to what you want guest's to be and copy
- the preferences file.
-
- 8. Bonus Perl script
-
- The HTML version of this Mini-HOWTO is also a Perl script that does
- all of the steps for you except "Add the guest account" which needs
- to be run as root. Run the script with perl -x.
-
- 9. To do
-
- This document needs setup information for other graphical browsers,
- a non-graphical section for Lynx, and how to do a no-keyboard setup
- that will come up with a guest web browser when you turn it on.
-