path: root/tdecore/README.kiosk

In KDE3 a kiosk-framework has been introduced.

One of the driving forces behind KDE is to put the user in control and
give him or her a large amount of possibilities to adjust KDE to his or her 
liking. However, in some situations it is required to reduce the possibilities
of KDE, e.g. because the system is to be used for one or more specific 
dedicated tasks only.

The kiosk-framework provides an easy way to disable certain features within
KDE to create a more controlled environment.

KDE's kiosk-framework builds on KDE's configuration framework and adds a
simple application API that applications can query to get authorisation
for certain operations.

The KDE kiosk-framework should be used IN ADDITION to the standard UNIX
security measures. 

The configuration framework in KDE3
===================================

Since the very beginning KDE makes use of file-hierarchy to store resources
for its applications. Resources range from icons, wallpapers, fonts to 
sounds, menu-descriptions and configuration files. 

In KDE1 there were two locations were resources could be located: The 
resources provided by the system were located under $TDEDIR and user-
specific resources were located under $HOME/.kde.

In KDE2 resource management has been largely abstracted by the introduction
of the KStandardDirs class and has become much more flexible. The user /
administrator can now specify a variable number of locations where resources
can be found. A list of locations can either be specified via $TDEDIRS
(notice the extra 'S'), via /etc/kderc and even via the kdeglobals config 
file. The location where user-specific resources can be found can be
set with $TDEHOME (The default is $HOME/.kde). Changes made by the user
are always written back to $TDEHOME.

Both KDE1 and KDE2 feature so called "cascading configuration files": There
can be multiple configuration files with the same name in the various 
locations for (config) resources, when that is the case, the information of 
all these configuration files is combined on a key by key basis. If the same
key (within a certain group) is defined in more than one place, the value
of the key for the config file that was read last will override any previously
read values. Configuration files under $TDEHOME are always read last. This
ensures that after a configuration entry is written, the same value wil be
read back.

In KDE3 two important changes have been made:

* Default values are no longer written.
When a configuration file in a location other than $TDEHOME defines a value 
for a key and the application subsequently writes out a new configuration file
to $TDEHOME, that configuration file will only contain an entry for the key
if its value differs from the value read from the other file.

This counters the problem that changing default configuration files under 
$TDEDIR would not take effect for users, since these users would most likely
have their own copy of these settings under $TDEHOME. KDE3 will make sure 
not to copy these settings so changes made under $TDEDIR will affect all users
that haven't explicitly changed the affected settings to something else.

* Configuration entries can be marked "immutable".
Starting with KDE3, configuration entries can be marked "immutable". When a
configuration entry is immutable it means that configuration files that are
read later will not be able to override its value. Immutable entries cannot
be changed via KConfig and if the entry is present under $TDEHOME it will 
be ignored.

Entries can be marked immutable on 4 different levels:

- On an entry by entry basis by appending "[$i]" after the key.

Example:
[MyGroup]
someKey[$i]=42

- On a group by group basis by appending "[$i]" after the group. All entries
specified in the group will be marked immutable and no new entries can be
added to the group.

Example:
[MyGroup][$i]
someKey=42

- On a file by file basis by starting the file with [$i].

Example:
[$i]
[MyGroup]
someKey=42
[MyOtherGroup]
someOtherKey=11

- On a directory basis. [Not yet implemented]

- The filesystem can also be used to mark files immutable. If KDE does not 
have write-access to the user's version of a configuration file, the file
will be automatically considered immutable. 

To make the configration file of kicker (the panel) immutable one could for
example use the commands below.

Example:
chown root.root /home/user/.kde/share/config/kickerrc
chmod 644 /home/user/.kde/share/config/kickerrc

If you do this, the user will be warned that the configuration file is not
writable. Since you will normally not want that, you can add the following
two lines to the application's configuration file (or to kdeglobals to
disable the warning for all applications):

[KDE Action Restrictions]
warn_unwritable_config=false

Note that the avove example is not fool-proof, the user can potentially still 
rename either the root-owned kickerrc file or any of the directories in 
the path to another name and create a new kickerrc _with_ write-access.

KDE3 Action Restrictions
========================

Most functionality within KDE is coupled to so called actions. For example when a user
selects the File->Open option in the menubar of a KDE application, the "file_open"
action is activated. Likewise, toolbar icons are usually also coupled to actions. KDE
makes it possible to disable functionality by restricting specific actions. By restricting the
"file_open" action for example, the corresponding entry in the menubar and the corresponding icon on
the toolbar, if any, will disappear.

To restrict access to function the kdeglobals file should contain the 
group "[KDE Action Restrictions]", each action can then be restricted by 
adding "<action>=false". E.g. to disable the action "shell_access" one 
would add:
[KDE Action Restrictions][$i]
shell_access=false

Actions that refer to menu and toolbar actions are prefixed with 'action/'. 
The following standard actions are defined:

action/file_new
action/file_open
action/file_open_recent
action/file_save
action/file_save_as
action/file_revert
action/file_close
action/file_print
action/file_print_preview
action/file_mail
action/file_quit
action/edit_undo
action/edit_redo
action/edit_cut
action/edit_copy
action/edit_paste
action/edit_select_all
action/edit_deselect
action/edit_find
action/edit_find_next
action/edit_find_last
action/edit_replace
action/view_actual_size
action/view_fit_to_page
action/view_fit_to_width
action/view_fit_to_height
action/view_zoom_in
action/view_zoom_out
action/view_zoom
action/view_redisplay
action/go_up
action/go_back
action/go_forward
action/go_home
action/go_previous
action/go_next
action/go_goto
action/go_goto_page
action/go_goto_line
action/go_first
action/go_last
action/bookmarks // See note below
action/bookmark_add
action/bookmark_edit
action/tools_spelling
action/options_show_menubar
action/options_show_toolbar  // See note below
action/options_show_statusbar
action/options_save_options
action/options_configure
action/options_configure_keybinding
action/options_configure_toolbars
action/options_configure_notifications
action/help // See note below
action/help_contents
action/help_whats_this
action/help_report_bug
action/help_about_app
action/help_about_kde
action/fullscreen

Actions in the KDE File Dialog:
action/home		// Go to home directory
action/up		// Go to parent directory
action/back		// Go to previous directory
action/forward		// Go to next directory
action/reload		// Reload directory
action/mkdir		// Create new directory
action/toggleSpeedbar	// Show/hide sidebar
action/sorting menu	// Sorting options
action/short view	// Select short view
action/detailed view	// Select detailed view
action/show hidden	// Show/hide hidden files
action/preview		// Show/hide preview
action/separate dirs	// Show/hide separate directories


Konqueror & KDesktop related:
action/editfiletype
action/properties
action/openwith
action/openintab
action/kdesktop_rmb // RMB menu, see note below
action/iconview_preview 
action/sharefile // File sharing, see note below
action/sendURL // Send Link Address
action/sendPage // Send File
action/devnew // Create New -> Device
action/incIconSize // Increase icon size
action/decIconSize // Decrease icon size
action/go // Entire go menu
action/configdesktop // Configure desktop in RMB menu, see also Control Module Restrictions
action/executeshellcommand // In Konqueror Tools menu, see also shell_access
action/show_dot // Show Hidden Files, see note below


Kicker related: 
action/kicker_rmb // RMB menu
action/menuedit


KWin related:
action/twin_rmb // RMB window context menu

Konsole related:
action/konsole_rmb // RMB context menu

action/settings // Entire settings menu
action/show_menubar
action/show_toolbar
action/scrollbar
action/fullscreen
action/bell
action/font
action/keyboard
action/schema
action/size
action/history
action/save_default
action/save_sessions_profile
action/options_configure_notifications
action/options_configure_keybinding
action/options_configure

action/send_signal 
action/bookmarks
action/add_bookmark
action/edit_bookmarks
action/clear_terminal
action/reset_clear_terminal
action/find_history
action/find_next
action/find_previous
action/save_history
action/clear_history
action/clear_all_histories
action/detach_session
action/rename_session
action/zmodem_upload
action/monitor_activity
action/monitor_silence
action/send_input_to_all_sessions
action/close_session
action/new_session
action/activate_menu
action/list_sessions
action/move_session_left
action/move_session_right
action/previous_session
action/next_session
action/switch_to_session_1
action/switch_to_session_2
action/switch_to_session_3
action/switch_to_session_4
action/switch_to_session_5
action/switch_to_session_6
action/switch_to_session_7
action/switch_to_session_8
action/switch_to_session_9
action/switch_to_session_10
action/switch_to_session_11
action/switch_to_session_12
action/bigger_font
action/smaller_font
action/toggle_bidi



Notes:
* action/options_show_toolbar will also disable the "Toolbars" submenu
  if present.
* action/bookmarks also disables action/bookmark_add and action/bookmark_edit
* action/help is not yet fully implemented
* action/kdesktop_rmb disables the RMB menu but some actions may still be accesible
  via keyboard shortcuts: cut/copy/rename/trash/delete
* action/iconview_preview disables the option to toggle previews on or off
  in icon mode but the actual preview settings remains unaffected.
  To disable previews you also need to add the following lines to
  konqiconviewrc:
	[Settings]
	PreviewsEnabled[$i]=false
* action/show_dot disables the option to toggle showing hidden files, the actual
  setting remains unaffected.
  To disable showing hidden files, add the following lines to konqiconviewrc:
	[Settings]
	ShowDotFiles[$i]=false
* action/sharefile disables file sharing from the UI, but you may also want
  to disable filesharing altogether.


Applications may use additional actions that they defined themselves.
You can get a list of the actions used by a certain applications by using the
following dcop command:

dcop <dcopid> qt objects | grep KActionCollection/ | cut -d '/' -f 3

or with

dcop <dcopid> <maindwindowid> actions


Actions that refer to applications that need to be run as a different user
are prefixed by user/ and identified by the username. For example:

user/root=false

will disable all application entries that require root access. 


Printing related action restrictions:

print/system
        - disables the option to select the printing system (backend). It is 
          recommended to  disable this option once the correct printing 
          system has been configured.

print/properties
        - disables the button to change printer properties or to add a new printer.

print/options
        - disables the button to select additional print options.

print/copies
        - disables the panel that allows users to make more than one copy.

print/selection
        - disables the options that allows selecting a (pseudo) printer or 
          change any of the printer properties. Make sure that a proper
          default printer has been selected before disabling this option.
          Disabling this option also disables print/system, print/options
          and print/properties.

print/dialog
        - disables the complete print dialog. Selecting the print option will
          immediately print the selected document using default settings.
          Make sure that a system wide default printer has been selected.
          No application specific settings are honored.

Other defined actions:

shell_access 
        - defines whether a shell suitable for entering random commands 
          may be started. This also determines whether the "Run Command"
          option (Alt-F2) can be used to run shell-commands and arbitrary  
          executables. Likewise, executables placed in the user's
          Autostart folder will no longer be executed. Applications can
          still be autostarted by placing .desktop files in the $TDEHOME/Autostart
          or $TDEDIR/share/autostart directory.
          See also run_desktop_files.

custom_config 
        - defines whether the --config command line option should be honored.
          The --config command line option can be used to circumvent 
          locked-down configuration files.

logout
        - defines whether the user will be able to logout from KDE.

lock_screen
        - defines whether the user will be able to lock the screen.

run_command
        - defines whether the "Run Command" (Alt-F2) option is available.

movable_toolbars
        - define whether toolbars may be moved around by the user.
          See also action/options_show_toolbar.

editable_desktop_icons
        - define whether icons on the desktop can be moved, renamed, 
          deleted or added. You might want to set the path for
          the Desktop to some read-only directory as well.
          (Instead of $HOME/Desktop)

run_desktop_files
        - defines whether users may execute desktop files that are not
          part of the default desktop, KDE menu, registered services and
          autostarting services.
          * The default desktop includes the files under 
            $TDEDIR/share/kdesktop/Desktop but _NOT_ the files under
            $HOME/Desktop. 
          * The KDE menu includes all files under $TDEDIR/share/applnk and
            $XDGDIR/applications
          * Registered services includes all files under $TDEDIR/share/services. 
          * Autostarting services include all files under $TDEDIR/share/autostart 
            but _NOT_ the files under $TDEHOME/Autostart

          You probably also want to activate the following resource
          restictions:
          "appdata_kdesktop" - To restrict the default desktop.
          "apps" - To restrict the KDE menu.
          "xdgdata-apps" - To restrict the KDE menu.
          "services" - To restrict registered services.
          "autostart" - To restrict autostarting services.
          Otherwise users can still execute .desktop files by placing them
          in e.g. $TDEHOME/share/kdesktop/Desktop

lineedit_text_completion
        - defines whether input lines should have the potential to remember 
          any previously entered data and make suggestions based on this 
          when typing. When a single account is shared by multiple people you
          may wish to disable this out of privacy concerns.

start_new_session
	- defines whether the user may start a second X session.
          See also the tdm configuration.

switch_user
        - defines whether user switching via tdm is allowed

skip_drm
	- defines if the user may omit DRM checking.
          Currently only used by kpdf

Screensaver related:
opengl_screensavers
	- defines whether OpenGL screensavers are allowed to be used.

manipulatescreen_screensavers
	- defines whether screensavers that manipulate an image of the screen
	  (e.g. moving chunks of the screen around) are allowed to be used.

When configuration files are marked immutable in whole or in part the user will no
longer be able to make permanent changes to the settings that have been marked
immutable. Ideally the application will recognize this and will no longer offer the
user the possibility to change these settings. Unfortunately not all applications
support this at the moment. It's therefor possible that the user will still be
presented with an option in the user interface to change a setting that is
immutable, changes made this way will not be saved though. In some cases the
user may be able to use the changed setting till the application terminates, in
other cases the changed setting will simply be ignored and the application will
continue to work with the immutable setting.

The following applications currently detect when their configuration files have been
marked immutable and adjust their user interface accordingly:

* kicker - By marking the kickerrc config file as immutable, the panel will be 
"locked down" and it will not be possible to make any changes to it.

* kdesktop - By marking the kdesktoprc config file as immutable, the desktop
will be "locked down" and it will no longer be possible to select
"Configure Desktop" from its menus.

* kcalc - By marking the kcalcrc config file as immutable, the "Configure" button
will not be shown

Application .desktop files can have an additional field "X-KDE-AuthorizeAction".
If this field is present the .desktop file is only considered if the action(s) 
mentioned in this field has been authorized. If multiple actions are listed
they should be separated by commas (','). So if the .desktop file of an application
lists one or more actions this way and the user has no authorization for one
of these actions then the application will not appear in the KDE menu and will not
be used by KDE for opening files.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Changing restrictions may influence the data that is cached in the ksycoca
database. Since changes to .../share/config/kdeglobals do not trigger an
automatic ksycoca update you need to force an update manually.
To force an update of the ksycoca database touch the file 
.../share/services/update_ksycoca. This will force a user's sycoca database
to be rebuild the next time the user logs in.

KDE3 URL Restrictions
=====================

It is also possible to restrict URL related actions. The restriction framework 
can disable URL actions based on the action, the URL in question and in some cases 
the referring URL. URLs can be matched based on protocol, host and path.

The syntax for adding URL action restrictions to kdeglobals is as follows:

[KDE URL Restrictions]
rule_count=<N>
rule_1=<action>,<referingURL_protocol>,<referingURL_host>,<referingURL_path>,<URL_protocol>,<URL_host>,<URL_path>,<enabled>
...
rule_N=<action>,<referingURL_protocol>,<referingURL_host>,<referingURL_path>,<URL_protocol>,<URL_host>,<URL_path>,<enabled>

The following actions are supported:
redirect - e.g. a html-page obtained via HTTP could redirect itself to file:/path/some-file. This
           is disabled by default but could be explicitly enabled for a specific HTTP host.
           This also applies to links contained in html documents.
           Example: rule_1=redirect,http,myhost.acme.com,,file,,,true

list     - This controls which directories can be browsed with KDE's file-dialogs. If a user
           should only be able to browse files under home directory one could use:
              rule_1=list,,,,file,,,false
              rule_2=list,,,,file,,$HOME,true
           The first rule disables browing any directories on the local filesystem. The second rule
           then enables browsing the users home directory.

open     - This controls which files can be opened by the user in applications. It also
           affects where users can save files. To only allow a user to open the files 
           in his own home directory one could use:
              rule_1=open,,,,file,,,false
              rule_2=open,,,,file,,$HOME,true
              rule_3=open,,,,file,,$TMP,true
           Note that with the above, users would still be able to open files from 
           the internet. Note that the user is also given access to $TMP in order to
           ensure correct operation of KDE applications. $TMP is replaced with the 
           temporary directory that KDE uses for this user.

Some remarks:
* empty entries match everything
* host names may start with a wildcard, e.g. "*.acme.com"
* a protocol also matches similar protocols that start with the same name, 
  e.g. "http" matches both http and https. You can use "http!" if you only want to
  match http (and not https)
* specifying a path matches all URLs that start with the same path. For better results
  you should not include a trailing slash. If you want to specify one specific path, you can 
  add an exclamation mark. E.g. "/srv" matches both "/srv" and "/srv/www" but "/srv!" only
  matches "/srv" and not "/srv/www".


KDE3 Resource Restrictions
==========================
Most KDE applications make use of additional resource files that are typically
located in directories under $TDEDIR/share. By default KDE allows users to
override any of these resources by placing files in the same location 
under $TDEHOME/share. For example, Konsole stores profiles under 
$TDEDIR/share/apps/konsole and users can add additional profiles by 
installing files in $TDEHOME/share/apps/konsole.

KDE3 Resource Restrictions make it possible to restrict the lookup of files
to directories outside of $TDEHOME only.

The following resources are defined:

autostart - share/autostart
data - share/apps
html - share/doc/HTML
icon - share/icon
config - share/config
pixmap - share/pixmaps
apps - share/applnk
xdgdata-apps - share/applications
sound - share/sounds
locale - share/locale
services - share/services
servicetypes - share/servicetypes
mime - share/mimelnk
wallpaper - share/wallpapers
templates - share/templates
exe - bin
lib - lib

For the purpose of resource restrictions there are two special resources:
all - covers all resources
data_<appname> - covers the sub section for <appname> in the data resource.

To restrict resources the kdeglobals file should contain the
group "[KDE Resource Restrictions]", each resource can then be restricted by
adding "<resource>=false". E.g. to restrict the "wallpaper" resource to 
$TDEDIR/share/wallpapers one would add:
[KDE Resource Restrictions][$i]
wallpaper=false

And to prevent a user from adding additional konsole profiles, one would add:
[KDE Resource Restrictions][$i]
data_konsole=false


Control Module Restrictions
===========================

It is possible to restrict access to particular control modules.
Although it is possible to remove control modules from the Control
Center by editing the menu structure, such modules will then still
be available to applications. A better way is to use the control
module restrictions offered by KIOSK:

[TDE Control Module Restrictions][$i]
<menu-id>=false

Some example menu-ids are:

kde-display.desktop
kde-proxy.desktop
kde-screensaver.desktop

See also kcmshell --list for a list of all the base names.

Expansion of environment variables in KDE config files.
=======================================================

In KDE3.1 arbitrary entries in configuration files can contain environment
variables. In order to use this the entry must be marked with [$e]. 

Example:
Name[$e]=$USER

When the "Name" entry is read $USER will be replaced with the value of the
$USER environment variable. Note that the application will replace $USER
with the value of the environment variable after saving. To prevent this
combine the $e option with $i (immmutable) option.

Example:
Name[$ei]=$USER

The above will make that the "Name" entry will always return the value of
the $USER environment variable. The user will not be able to change this entry.

The following syntax is also supported:
Name[$ei]=${USER}


Shell Commands in KDE config files.
===================================

In KDE3.1 arbitrary entries in configuration files can contain shell 
commands. This way the value of a configuration entry can be determined
dynamically at runtime. In order to use this the entry must be marked 
with [$e]. 

Example:
Host[$e]=$(hostname)


KDE3 Kiosk Application API
==========================

Three new methods have been added to KApplication:

- bool authorize(QString action); // Generic actions
- bool authorizeKAction(QString action); // For KActions exclusively
- bool authorizeURLAction(QString, referringURL, destinationURL) // URL Handling

Automatic Logout
================

Since KDE 3.4 it is possible to automatically logout users that have been idle
for a certain period of time.

WARNING: Be careful with this option, logging out a user may result in dataloss!

In kdesktoprc you can use the following entry to enable automatic logout:

[ScreenSaver]
AutoLogout=true
AutoLogoutTimeout=600

The AutoLogoutTimeout is the time in seconds that the user has to be idle before
his session is logged out.