CentOS - Feb 2010 - CentOS as an internet kiosk : how to create a "fresh" user upon leaving GNOME ?

Hi,

I'm currently busy setting up a machine for use as an internet kiosk. 
Here's what I aim to do.

- There's only one user on the system, 'invite'. One (very simple) 
password. The machine is to be used publicly and freely.

- To ensure some privacy, there's one detail though. The best thing 
would be that upon disconnection from the GNOME session, the user 
'invite' gets wiped from the system (userdel -r) and then created anew, 
with his password already set. This I can do.

- The tricky part is to do this upon disconnect. There's a function in 
System > Preferences > Session, where I can choose programs to run upon 
GNOME startup... but there's nothing similar for the disconnection.

- Writing a script disconnect.sh and then creating a desktop shortcut 
for it would be to no avail, since 'userdel' and 'useradd' can
only be
called as root.

Any idea how I could do this ? The idea is that every new user begins 
with a clean slate.

Cheers,

Niki

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Niki Kovacs <contact at kikinovak.net>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently busy setting up a machine for use as an internet kiosk.
> Here's what I aim to do.
>
> - There's only one user on the system, 'invite'. One (very
simple)
> password. The machine is to be used publicly and freely.
>
> - To ensure some privacy, there's one detail though. The best thing
> would be that upon disconnection from the GNOME session, the user
> 'invite' gets wiped from the system (userdel -r) and then created
anew,
> with his password already set. This I can do.
>
> - The tricky part is to do this upon disconnect. There's a function in
> System > Preferences > Session, where I can choose programs to run
upon
> GNOME startup... but there's nothing similar for the disconnection.
>
> - Writing a script disconnect.sh and then creating a desktop shortcut
> for it would be to no avail, since 'userdel' and 'useradd'
can only be
> called as root.
>
> Any idea how I could do this ? The idea is that every new user begins
> with a clean slate.
>
> Cheers,
> Niki
You don't need to delete and re-add the user every time.  That would
be silly and as you see requires root privs.

Since you already have the login script ability, change that script to
delete the sensitive data you are talking about (just don't delete the
login script).  The last part of the script could be to un-tar a file
with the clean profile information already in it.