KDE Kiosk Mode

When users misconfigure software by mistake, the help desk suffers too. Here's how to lock in sensible choices for important options.

One of the more powerful aspects of the KDE desktop is the ability to customize the user experience completely. Most KDE programs use core features and plugins provided by the desktop system, creating a consistent user interface and easy-to-access configuration setup. One popular extension to this interface, known as KDE's Kiosk Mode, allows a system administrator to configure all aspects of the desktop for an end user and optionally prevent the end user from making modifications to the provided setup.

KDE applications utilize a configuration framework similar to Microsoft Windows INI files. One benefit of this file type is the ease of direct manual editing of the configuration file by an administrator or user. The INI file format is an ordinary text file that is divided into smaller named sections, each section having one or more key/value pairs. These values are used and stored directly by the applications:


Configuration files are located in a number of places, largely based on which distribution is being used. When an application attempts to find its configuration, it scans according to a predefined search order. The list of directories that are searched for config files is seen by using the command kde-config --path config. The directories shown actually are searched in the reverse order in which they are listed. This search order is put together by the following set of rules:

  1. /etc/kderc: a search path of directories can be specified within this file.

  2. KDEDIRS: a standard environment variable that is set to point KDE applications to the installation directories of KDE libraries and applications. It most likely already is set at login time. The installation directory of KDE automatically is appended to this list if it is not already present.

  3. KDEDIR: an older environment variable now considered deprecated in favor of KDEDIRS. If KDEDIRS is set, this variable is ignored for configuration.

  4. The directory of the executable file being run.

  5. KDEHOME or KDEROOTHOME: usually set to ~/.kde. The former is for all users, and the latter is for root.

Configuration files are stored in directory trees that end in /share/config, so an environment variable directory like KDEHOME has a /share/config appended to it to make the configuration file directory name.

When an application requests its configuration information, KDE searches all of the above directories for the files that go with the application and merges them together into one configuration object for the program. Information is combined on a key-by-key basis—any conflicts receive the value that was read latest in the chain. Because KDEHOME files always are read last, any local user changes made to the file always override values in other configuration files. This is the reason the output directories of the kde-config command are shown in reverse order—they are listed based on the precedence of the config files contained within.

Because the configuration file values cascade downstream, system administrators can preset certain configuration values in an upper-level directory to be used as the default for all users, or at least until those users make any changes. For example, if the system administrator wanted to set a default wallpaper for all users, until those users made custom changes, a simple edit of the kdesktoprc file in an upper-level configuration directory would provide this feature:


One of the features of KDE's Kiosk Mode is the ability to lock values read from configuration files earlier in the chain so that values read later cannot override them. This utility not only allows system administrators to preset certain configuration items, but it also lets the administrators lock those configuration items down so that end users cannot make custom changes. Locking configuration values in this fashion is easy.

Assume an administrator wants to lock the Konqueror configuration down so that the navigation toolbar always is presented in text form. A simple scan of the $KDEHOME/share/config/konquerorrc file shows the following information:

[KonqMainWindow Toolbar mainToolBar]

This configuration item specifies that Konqueror use Text instead of Icons in the Main Toolbar. Changing this value in Konqueror is easy—right-click on a Konqueror toolbar and select Text Position to change between settings. Figures 1 and 2 show the difference in toolbars with text and icons.

Figure 1. The Konqueror Main Toolbar with the TextOnly Setting

Figure 2. The Konqueror Main Toolbar with the IconOnly Setting

To lock this value for users, the administrator simply can create or edit konquerorrc in a higher-level configuration directory. To make this value unchangeable, simply edit the file as shown:

[KonqMainWindow Toolbar mainToolBar]

The above [$i] specifies that this configuration value is immutable, meaning Konqueror should use this configuration value and not merge in any values in lower-level directories that normally would override this setting. Any configuration files farther down the configuration directory structure containing [KonqMainWindow Toolbar mainToolBar] group cannot override the IconText value.

Once this file is saved and Konqueror is restarted, any changes to the navigation toolbar's Text Position are not saved between Konqueror restarts. This is because the value was locked in an upper-level configuration directory, so it cannot be overwritten in a lower-level directory.

On a larger scale, whole groups of configurations can be specified as immutable. Setting the group as immutable makes all values in that group immutable as well. For example, in KCalc's configuration file, kcalcrc:





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