What I need to do is basically build a kiosk with Red Hat 8 and using Mozilla 1.6.. I need the browser to access out schools website and all of its links.. and that is it. So students are screwing around on it. Basically so they can access their mail, register for classes, and what not. But no BS like yahoo and crap like that... the school site only. I also want to be able to not give them access to the KDE desktop. What suggestions does anyone have? I have been told Squids will work to limit the browser.. but what about the KDE and is Squids the best option? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
-Brian

Is there a particular reason that you must use Red Hat 8 and using Mozilla 1.6? It is a bit limiting.

I know but it has to do with the college policy I guess.. I think it is dumb but what can I do?

Mysticpain - please remember: post your question once. Keeping the conversation in just one place per problem means that users helping you can keep track of other assistance you have received, you don't get a spate of similar answers and others using your thread as a reference have only one place to look.

Here is a linux kiosk howto:
http://www.linux.com/howtos/Kiosk-HOWTO-1.shtml

Hope it helps!

mysticpain, I have been looking into this recently too. My suggestions:
1) Don't use KDE if you want to hide the desktop.
2) If you need/want to have multiple windows then use a really simple windo manager like WindowLab.
3) If you don't need multiplw windows then just use the root window of X.
4) For the browser, take the latest release of firefox (this is the same code base as mozilla but it does not have mail etc). Then you can edit the xul files to remove any interface features such as the url entry box and other menus.
5) To make it really secure use iptables to block outgoing connections to any server other than your trusted ones.

Here's an slightly odd but efficient way of doing things that I've seen in a number of organisation.

Simply deny all internet access to and from these machines (at the router / firewall) but allow them to connect to an internally managed internet proxy (which you can specify within firefox - great browser by the way :) )

The internet proxy can them be set up to allow / disallow globally without having to fiddle with the machines individually. By limit other access to zero, you stop the risk of the machines being used in a number of malicious ways.

Just a thought :)

Steve