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setting up an internet cafe

H

h2009

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2007
75
0
Hi there,

A friend of mine was asking a question on how he can stop an attacked (which is currently happening to his shop) from damaging his business. He runs an amateur internet cafe which needs a complete rework.

The first though that came to mind was to setup a system which works much like a school network or computers which bootup from a server.

I.e. once a user is logged on and there time expires, the computer 'restores' a backup from the server, thus wiping any programs, webpages, cache which were on there.

Can anyone point me to anything that can i suggest to him to read on?

Also any particular software which can created timer/logon system - i.e. to allow users to see how long they have left of there sesson - and extend it if need be.

Basically i think it would be best to rebuild his system from ground up, so any information would be great.

thank you
 
OS X Server (Leopard):

See this document regard to booting computers from a network volume and restoring them to an standard configuration : http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/client.html.

Leopards built in Parental Controls could be used to time a users access and stipulate which applications they can use. Perhaps this can be could be configured centrally using Automator. See this : http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/parentalcontrols.html

Not sure what else to suggest. Its a difficult one.
 
So this is a Mac internet Cafe?

Either way i would start off with a m0n0wall to run the captive portal login. Then a RADIUS server to manage who gets login privileges etc.

EDIT:

So if its a all macs. Just use a very locked down guest account as that data is deleted when they log out. then setup a captive portal system off m0n0wall(or something similar)
 
is this an all mac cafe? i would think that would be difficult as a huge percent of the people that walk in are probably used to PC and have no idea or no interest in using a mac. I mean its certainly not difficult but you know alot of people dont want to even bother, or have absolutely no sense of technology.
 
Use a limited account, if it's on a Mac. That way, you get complete control over the account.
 
I can't comment about Deep Freeze on the Mac, but the libraries in my city run DF on the public access PC's. It's great, the public think they are doing things until a reboot.
 
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