Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[bjornjobb]

Hi, I have two questions or ideas that I would like to have feedback on.

The first one regards remastering a very minimal puppy for boot from a usb key, containing only:

*some kind of graphical desktop
*python
*wxpython
*some other python libs
*pgp
*ability to save files to the usb key

The python part is because I have special software written in python.

The os should specifically be unable to mount the computers hard drive or connect to wifi. The purpose for this is to create a limited sandboxed environment that the user has limited control over. It is to be used for electronic test taking at a university.

Preload one usb-key with the os and an exam (a text file). The students boot their private laptop computers with the usb and take the exam, save their results to the usb key, which they later hand in.

The advantage of this is that the students can not cheat by accessing their hard drive during the exam.

The exams could of course be taken on the university computers, but there is little control over the installed software (windows xp with loads of messenger software...) and the it department is not helpful.

Has something similar been done by anyone? I have little experience with puppy except that I managed easily to create an bootable usb key. I would like to see if people think this is a good idea or not, is there something about this idea that makes it unsafe?

Thanks for any reply!
Sincerely
Bjorn Johansson

[nooby]

Hi Bjorn!

You especially stress this point

"The os should specifically be unable to mount the computers hard drive or connect to wifi.

The purpose for this is to create a limited sandboxed environment that the user has limited control over. It is to be used for electronic test taking at a university."

The problem here is that Puppy is a Champion or Master at mounting all kinds of drives. Famous even so I hope Somebody really clever read your thread and tell you how to do this.

Maybe the Spot can be used. If one have password for activating root and spot is started up with access only to usb then the students would have a hard time guessing the password and only access to what spot allow?

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=57914

I know too little but read up on Spot. That thread have some thoughts on how to use spot and how that "user" works for browsing so you have to rebuild it to work for your purpose. putting the files they are allowed to use in that Spot folder only?

But the important thing is to get root password protected if one use spot? Us the search in my signature for how to set root using password at boot? Hm maybe I made a logical error there. One need to boot as spot and root should be password protected that is what to search for?

[aarf]

<sorry for not understanding the masses>

[nooby]

aarf, now I am the worst in that I too often derail others threads so I do cast heavy stones in the house of glass surely but this political things can we not take that in the off topic part when we have solved his problem first and then link to that thread on how to do schooling and university courses on cooperation and group sourcing and so on.

[Bruce B]

Is the exam graphics interface or text interface?

~

[nooby]

Seems he say this
*some kind of graphical desktop
Preload one usb-key with the os and an exam (a text file).

Text file? Is that plain ascii text or RTF or .doc or ,pdf or what?

So that text file get loaded into an Editor and then saved on the usb as the result of the exam.

Can that be done without him having to make a pupsave file for each usb and if each student have their own unique Laptop them all of them have different versions of video drivers? He would have a puppy that is extremely good at handling every unique graphic card. Vesa does that handle every card?

So what does that mean for the pupsave file? One can not expect the students to set it up so this complicate the whole thing?

[L18L]

[pubbyhove]

[bjornjobb]

Hi,
first I would like to thank the authors for all the replys, this certainly seem a vibrant community!

My most basic idea is to distribute the exam a a plain text file that the student modifies and saves to the usb from where puppy was booted. It will not be 100% safe, since the student can always write the questions down, reboot into the normal system, get correct answers by cheating and then reboot into puppy. This is an acceptable risk though, as this is slow and cumbersome process.

I though of puppy initially, because it worked right away on every cumputer I ever tried it on which is a good thing. Obviously, It would have to be tested before the exam...

I understood that spot is a limited user account under puppy. Then theoretically, such an account could be set up with limited access to hardware, internet etc. Perhaps this is easier, since perhaps disabling puppys ability to mount disks would prevent it from mounting itself? or saving files to the usb? I have no idea about the tech part of this.

I looked through the links in the responses, but I did not find anything on remastering... I would need a fairly step by step tutorial thing as I never did this before.

encryption of the exam could/should be done in order to distribute the system in advance of the exam (fo testing) and the key could be given at the time of the exam. However, my big concern is what happens during the exam.

What I am doing currently is distributing a password protected zip file ahead of the exam. At the exam I give the password, the students fill in the exam (a text file) and save the file to the hard drive. They then fill in a signed paper with the md5 sum of their exam. They send me the exam file whenever they have th chance and I compare the md5 sums to be sure that the files were not altered.

There is a commercial product called lock down browser
http://www.respondus.com/products/lockdown.shtml
which creates a limited browsing environment. I think a limited puppy environment could be more flexible in the type of exams that could be developed in the future, ie ones that need access to other kinds of software etc... I also heard some bad things about this browser and a google search revealed institutions giving up on this browser.

cheers!
bjorn

[Eathray]

If you added or already have a passkey at the router level, the students would not be able to 'google' answers for the test when they booted into Puppy because they would not know the key to make the connection.

If the test is of any length, they couldn't possibly boot back and forth between Windows and Puppy and still get the test done in the allotted time. As far as the potential for cheating goes, I think it's pretty low if the connection is passkey protected on the Windows side at the router level.

Eathray

[L18L]

[pteropus]

I hope its ok to post here cos its kind of related.
I need a minimal puppy with a word processor or text editor with word wrapping so students could type a response and save an rtf, doc ,txt or pdf to a flash drive.
This is for students who cannot write legibly, so they are closely supervised.
Machine would be disconnected from network, just want the puppy on a flash drive so i don't have to build special machines.
main restriction is NO spell or GRammar must be installed .. if i could work out how to remove spell from abiword, that would be fine.
Never built a puppy distro though.
Any advice?

[cthisbear]

Maybe this.

How to make a Puppy Kiosk out of Lucid Puppy 5.2

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=64632

The ISO is there as well.

Send >> shadower_sc ...a PM.

Chris.

[8-bit]

Here is something you may not have taken into account.
Each students PC/laptop will not be the same as to video and ability to boot from a USB stick.

I can also see someone remove the USB stick before the entered data is saved back to it.
IOW, test done, pull stick.