Creating a LiveCD for employees to use to VPN in from home

So, today I'm back to working on the LiveCD project.  Here is what I'm trying to accomplish:

Build a LiveCD that has icons already prepped on the desktop (actually the panel in Ubuntu) that enable the user to start a VPN connection to the office, open Firefox or Chromium with the primary 3 internal-only web pages opening with request for user ID and password.  Do NOT offer the install option either at boot or on the desktop afterward.

The primary reason for this is to ease the complexity users are currently facing when trying to VPN in from home.  The secondary reason, and my primary concern, is to keep them from introducing viruses into our network that they've managed to infect their home machines with.  By booting to a LiveCD that is known to be virus-free (gotta love Linux!), we can be certain that they are coming in clean.

Obviously, the laziest way would be to just hand them an Ubuntu LiveCD and a sheet of instructions for configuring the VPN connection, and explicit instructions regarding NEVER touching the install icon.  Problems?  First, we all know it is likely that the users would never read the instructions, would complain that they cannot configure the VPN, and would immediately overwrite their precious Windows partitions with Ubuntu because they hit the install icon.

The second best solution would be to put the VPN icon in the panel, and pre-configure the Firefox startup to open the three pages.  Problem?  The only way I've found to do this is with 'remastersys', which insists on including ubiquity, the startup script that includes the install option.  If I remove ubiquity from the source installation, remastersys automatically reaches out and downloads it before creating the iso file.

Third best option is building a new LiveCD from scratch, and it's starting to look like that's what I'm going to have to do.  Oh, well, let the adventure begin!

The process I'm going through is often the way it is in systems administration.  Disclaimer: I'm about to exaggerate in order to make a point!  And this has nothing to do with any religion!  It's just a story to make a point!

You decide to write a simple script to do a bit of math.  A couple of hours into the job, you discover that in order to truly understand this math, because we in America use Arabic numerals, you need to learn the entire Arabic language.  You sigh, google up some pages on the Arabic language, and then manfully (or womanfully) begin learning a whole new language.  A few days into that, you suddenly discover that in order to truly understand the Arabic language and how people think in that language, you'll need to memorize the entire Koran, word for word.  At this point, you think back to the simple little script you wanted to write, curl up under your desk in the fetal position, place your thumb in your mouth, and wait for the shaking to stop.

Here's hoping I get the LiveCD done this week.  It's already taken far too long.  Heavy, heavy sigh...

Benny Helms