A Temporary Internet Lounge Revisited

Back in 2003 I put together a temporary Internet lounge for the World
Science Fiction Convention using a customized Knoppix 3.4, which worked out
well. I then wrote about what I had done, and that article appeared in
the
February 2005
issue of Linux Journal. Of course, time and
software wait for no person, so the question now has become how to build
a temporary Internet lounge using used/bargain hardware with Knoppix 3.7.

To re-cap, Knoppix is a Debian-based Linux distribution that boots and runs
off the CD-ROM drive. By default Knoppix never touches the
hard drive--you don't have to install it, you simply have to tell a
PC to boot from the CD-ROM drive. Because of Knoppix's excellent hardware
detection system, one could, in theory at least, put together a dozen different
makes and models of PCs with a dozen identical Knoppix disks, and in
five minutes have all of them up, running and browsing the Internet.
With Knoppix, there are in essence two filesystems on the disk--a conventional ISO 9660 system
that is used while Knoppix boots and a compressed filesystem that is used
after the system boots. This complicates things, but it also allows Knoppix to store
significantly more than 700MB of software on a conventional 700MB CD-ROM.

Knoppix gets us out of paying the license fees associated with commercial operating systems.
Knoppix also gets us away from the hard disk install time requirements of
conventional free and commercial operating systems, such as Microsoft,
Debian, SuSE, Fedora, FreeBSD and so on. With Knoppix, we have the freedom to
tailor exactly what the user sees, be it screen wallpaper that shows the
name of the event or browser bookmarks that show the names of the event
sponsors.

So, what things might you want to change or control for a temporary Internet
lounge at an event? First, the default screen resolution of Knoppix is 1024 x 768.
Many 15-inch monitors do not support a resolution greater than 800 x
600, however. So, if you know that you're getting 15-inch monitors, you
should adjust the resolution down to 800 x 600. Second, the default window manager is KDE. If you don't
know what sort of PCs you are getting for your event or if know they
will have less than 128MB of memory and/or less than a Pentium II 350
CPU, you should use a lighter-weight window manager, such as IceWM.
Third, the default home page in the browsers would have to be set to
something that reflects your event. Similarly, the browser bookmarks
likely should be set to event-related information and/or
local tourist information. Fourth, the startup screen and wallpaper may need to note
the event and/or event sponsors. Fifth, you likely want to add
Macromedia Flash support. Sixth, to stay focused on the event, extras
can be removed. Finally, you likely want to enable automatic timeserver updates.

Begin your project by downloading and burning a copy of Knoppix. What is described
here works with Knoppix 3.7; other versions of Knoppix may not work with
what is described below.

You need to assemble a development machine; a machine as modest as a
Pentium II 350MHz, with 256MB of RAM, a 52x CD-ROM and a blank 6GB hard drive
is sufficient. You could do with less RAM and a slower CD-ROM,
but this is about as modest a machine as you would want for this sort of
customization. To supplement this development machine, elsewhere on your
network you need one or more support boxes to act as the FTP server, a
CD burner and the DHCP server.

Next, boot the development box under Knoppix and start a shell. The first
steps are to set up a new filesystem, create the necessary directories and
create a swap file. Some of this stuff requires just over 1GB of memory,
RAM plus swap, so for a machine with 256MB of RAM, a 750MB swap file is
needed. Here are the commands for setting up the drive for the first time:

su
mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda1
mount -o rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
mkdir /mnt/hda1/master
mkdir /mnt/hda1/source
mkdir /mnt/hda1/knx
cd /mnt/hda1/knx
dd if=/dev/zero of=swap bs=1M count=750
cd ~
umount /dev/hda1
exit

In the above commands, the master directory is used to store the conventional
filesystem, source was used to store what is going to be the compressed filesystem and
knx was used to store the swap file plus the finished CD image. The above
steps should need to be taken only once.

You probably are going to take the next set of steps several times, so you may want to
turn it into a small script to automate this part of the disk creation task. This
way you can burn a draft CD-R, show it to others associated with the event,
get feedback and adapt it based on feedback. Here we erase past work, set up
swap space and then copy from the current CD image to the hard drive.

su
mount -o rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
cd /mnt/hda1/source
rm -rf *
cd /mnt/hda1/master
rm -rf *
cd /mnt/hda1/knx
rm knoppix.iso
mkswap swap
swapon swap
cp -Rp /KNOPPIX/* /mnt/hda1/source
cp /cdrom/index.html /mnt/hda1/master
cd /cdrom
mkdir /mnt/hda1/master/KNOPPIX
find . -size -1000000 -type f -exec cp -p --parents {} /mnt/hda1/master/ \;

You now are ready to start customizing your installation. The following
steps are separated based on topic, so you may want to skip some sections.

Start with artwork, namely the opening screen and the wallpaper. For the
wallpaper, practically any PNG image the size of your screens--1024 x
768 or 800 x 600--is fine. A number of graphic programs enable you to convert
easily from .jpg files to .png files, including the popular and free The GIMP.
Save this image on the support box as knoppix.png.

The opening start-up screen needs to be in a special 640 x 400 16-color
format. If you decide to use Macromedia's Flash program, you need to
credit them as part of the boot screen. So, create a simple 640 x 400
image with less than 17 colors, and save it in .bmp format on the
support box as startup.bmp.

Next, download the image files from the support box and convert the
start-up image to the format you are going to need later:

cd ~knoppix
lftp -u <<support box userid>>,<<support box password>> <<support box ip
number>>
get startup.bmp
get knoppix.png
exit
bmptoppm startup.bmp | ppmtolss16 >logo.16

Next, get into the boot filesystem and issue these commands:

cd /mnt/hda1/master/boot/isolinux
mv ~knoppix/logo.16 .
chmod 744 logo.16

The next step is to edit the text that shows up under the logo in the file
boot-en.msg. Ignore the first two lines--they contain the code to load the
logo image--and make sure the third and fourth lines are less than 80 characters.
Override the read-only warning, save the file and exit.

To replace the wallpaper, enter:

mv ~knoppix/knoppix.png /mnt/hda1/master/KNOPPIX/background.png

You now are ready to edit /mnt/hda1/master/boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg.
Within isolinux.cfg, you need to edit the first and second
APPEND lines. If you want an
800 x 600 default screen, change the VGA value to
vga=788. After that, insert the command
screen=800x600. If you want to use IceWM, then
insert desktop=icewm after the vga= command.
Finally, at the end of the file, delete a number of # characters so
the final file is no larger than it was when you started. Override the
read-only warning, save the file and exit.

Due to the oddities of compression, you may have a situation where without
adding or removing software you can find yourself with a too-large
filesystem. So, remove unneeded software with these commands:

chroot /mnt/hda1/source
dpkg -P <<name of an unneeded package>>

Easy targets to get rid of include games, KDE, server and high-end office
software, such as openoffice-de-en. Also easy to get rid of are
selected language files, for example, kde-i18n-xx, where the xx represents an
unneeded country code. Once done here, press Ctrl+D to leave chroot.

If you need to add a software package, enter:

chroot /mnt/hda1/source
wget <<url and name of required package>>
mv <<package name>> /mnt/hda1/source
dpkg -i <<name of previously downloaded required package>>
rm <<name of now installed package>>

Once done, press Ctrl+D to leave chroot. Keep in mind that for
anything added, you must take away something larger.

If you did anything while under chroot, you left a history file. To
get rid of that history file, enter:

rm /mnt/hda1/source/root/.bash_history
touch /mnt/hda1/source/root/.bash_history
chmod 600 /mnt/hda1/source/root/.bash_history

Now, start Mozilla, edit the bookmarks, set the default home to the event
home page and tweak the default settings. These changes
are stored on the RAM disk. To move them to the hard disk you enter:

cp -r ~knoppix/.mozilla/knoppix/ujixazk6.slt/*
/mnt/hda1/source/etc/skel/.mozilla/knoppix/ujixazk6.slt
chmod -R 644 /mnt/hda1/source/etc/skel/.mozilla/knoppix/ujixazk6.slt/*

Now it's time to add the Flash plugin. Subject to some conditions, noted
here,
you can distribute copies of Flash with your custom Knoppix disk. You need
to credit Macromedia and send the company two copies of what you have
done. Assuming you can live with Macromedia's conditions, here are the
steps for installing Flash. After you have agreed to Macromedia's
conditions, download the Linux install package to /home/knoppix. From
there, enter:

cd /mnt/hda1/knx
mv /home/knoppix/install_flash_player_7_linux.tar.gz .
tar -xvzf install_flash_player_7_linux.tar.gz
cd install_flash_player_7_linux
./flashplayer-installer

During the install program, you are asked where you want to install
Flash. The answer is:

/mnt/hda1/source/usr/lib/mozilla

You now can delete the install package:

rm *
cd ..
rmdir install_flash_player_7_linux
rm install_flash_player_7_linux.tar.gz

People attending your event most likely will check the time on the PCs and expect the PC
clocks to be correct. Look around /usr/share/zoneinfo to
find the name of the time zone in which you plan to hold the event. For
example, if the event is planned for Winnipeg, Manitoba, the target time
zone should be Canada/Central. If the event is to be in Seattle, Washington, the
target time zone should be US/Pacific. Visit ntp.isc.org to
get the IP number of a secondary timeserver close to the event that welcomes
visitors.

If your router has a built-in NTP server, set that router to
use the timeserver, and set your planned
timeserver below to the router's
address. Regardless of where your timeserver is--the router or a site
outside your event--create the file /mnt/hda1/source/etc/rc5.d/S99timesetup
and insert the following:

#!/bin/bash
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/<<target time zone>> /etc/localtime
ntpdate -s -u <<name of the planned timeserver>>

To finish off the time server program, enter:

chmod 755 /mnt/hda1/source/etc/rc5.d/S99timesetup

If it's possible that the CD-ROMs you create might be dropped into machines running
Windows, you may want to edit the file /mnt/hda1/master/index.html and
replace Knoppix information with information about your event.
Otherwise, enter:

rm /mnt/hda1/master/autorun.*
rm /mnt/hda1/master/index.html

Now that the software is assembled, you can create the compressed filesystem:

cd /mnt/hda1/source
mkisofs -R -U -V "KNOPPIX.net filesystem" -publisher "KNOPPIX
www.knoppix.net" -hide-rr-moved -cache-inodes -no-bak --pad
/mnt/hda1/source | nice -5 /usr/bin/create_compressed_fs - 65536 >
/mnt/hda1/master/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX

During the above process, you are likely to receive and can ignore a warning message
noting that the filesystem is not ISO-9660. This is the slow step; it
takes about an hour on a Pentium III 450. A slightly better compression rate can be
achieved by inserting a -b after the
create_compressed_fs, at the expense of
much longer compress times.

Next, create the CD as a whole:

mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V "KNOPPIX" -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4
-boot-info-table -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat
-hide-rr-moved -o /mnt/hda1/knx/knoppix.iso /mnt/hda1/master

From here use lftp to move the resulting
file to the support box for burning onto CD-R.

Beyond making the Knoppix CD-ROMs, other issues must be considered when
creating the Internet lounge: disabilities, legalities, room layout,
power, router setup, staffing and wireless connectivity. Talk to the senior
event organizers about any special requirements for people with disabilities.

A brief visit to a lawyer is wise idea to ask about people with disabilities
and lounge rules. What provisions you legally are required to make to
assist people with disabilities should be your first question. Between what
the lawyer says and what the event organizers say, the highest
denominator wins. Second, ask about room rules. You want it clearly spelled
out that people are using the lounge at their own risk. If someone in the
lounge does something illegal and/or immoral, you and the event people do not want to be
held legally responsible. To limit the risk of machine damage, keep food
and drink away from the machines. Further on your rules sheet, you likely
want to reserve the right to remove any being (human, animal or other) that
is causing what you consider to be a disruption. Wording the rules
correctly easily could be worth the cost of a brief visit to a lawyer.

If you have a choice about locations, choose the one that meets the needs
of your disabled users, is as central as possible to the event, has easy
access to power outlets and has some sort of high speed Internet connection
already in place. If your event is spread out geographically, consider one
or more satellite Internet lounges.

For room layout, remember to keep cables as short as possible and safe. A large
rectangle or other enclosed shape can work well, with the cables running on
the inside of the tables and the lounge visitors on the outside.
This keeps most cables from being a potential hazard. This design also
keeps the switches away from mischief and leaves a fairly safe place for staff to store their
backpacks/bags. Any cables that do have to cross the floor should be covered
with heavy cloth tape, or some other arrangement must be made to make sure
they do not become a hazard.

You also need to check on power for your machines. In North America, you may
be looking at 7.5A of power for a desktop PC plus a monitor--the
information will be printed on the power supplies--or you may be looking at
less than 1 amp for some laptop computers. In North America, a standard
electrical circuit, which may be supporting several wall outlets, can offer
up to 15A at 115 volts. So when you are looking at 7.5A per PC and
monitor, you need one circuit for every two PCs. Or you could be looking at
one outlet per 15 laptops. Make allowances for hubs, routers and other
equipment you plan to have in the room and plan accordingly. If there isn't
enough power, call an electrician and either bring in extra power or plan to
cut back on the room power consumption by going to less power-hungry
machines or by reducing the total number of machines. When planning, remember the
electrician may need a fair bit of lead time to bring in the extra power you
need, so talk to him/her as early in this process as possible. The last thing
you want is people being cut off from sending e-mail because of a blown
circuit breaker.

It typically is not cost effective to build even a simple router, such
as a Coyote Linux box. The problem with a homemade router is the time it
takes away from other preparation work, and dealing with a failure
requires more than running to a shop with a receipt for a warranty exchange.
So, get a basic commercial router/DHCP server from a shop that has a generous exchange
policy and long hours that is located near the event. If you are going
to be located away from stores, get a second router and call it insurance.

Put together and then follow a packing list of what you are going to need
at the event. Include mouse pads, power bars, electrical cords, signs and all the other
little bits needed for the lounge.

Once the event starts, you need to staff the Internet lounge, which may
mean one person answering questions about how to start up the Mozilla
browser. Do think about how you will keep the room covered when you need to
step out for a meal or to use the bathroom and so on. The World Science
Fiction Convention normally goes with the 6-2-1 rule for volunteers--everyone
is required to get at least six hours of uninterrupted sleep, at least
two solid meals and at least one shower/bath per 24 hours. That should
be a good starting point for anyone working the lounge.

With Knoppix you can have a five-minute training session for room
monitors, during which you show them the basics. Tell them that in the event
of problems or oddities, simply reset a machine because the hard drive
isn't being used. Also, think about how visitors to the lounge will be
able to identify room staff: name badge? special hat? special
jacket?

802.11B or 802.11G wireless access is worth considering for most events, as
you likely are going to have some people with laptops who want this option. I
suggest you set up a basic wireless hub, in which you set up WEP
security, and then post the appropriate settings either in the lounge and/or in
a publication given only to event attendees. This way your attendees can use
wireless when they are in/near the lounge, but not everyone from the general
public can access your network connectivity.

Beyond that, Knoppix is a great solution for temporary Internet Lounges, so
have fun with it.

Colin McGregor (colin@mcgregor.org) works
for a Toronto area charity, does consulting on the side and has
served as President of the Toronto Free-Net. He also has made
presentations at Toronto Linux User Group meetings. He
enjoys attending, if not always working at, science fiction
conventions.