Administering a PC in a Vacation Rental Home?

Posted by Cliff on Wednesday June 2, 2004 @06:30AM from the ammenities-and-security-nightmares dept.

mrn121 asks: "Some relatives of mine are preparing their beach house for rental, and they have asked me to assist in setting up some of the on-site technology. One of my ideas was to add a computer with high-speed internet access to the house, but security issues may be overwhelming. I have administered campus computing labs in the past, so I am familiar with locking systems down, but I am curious about what level of security readers might suggest, and how to go about achieving an appropriate balance between security and usability for such an application. On one hand, I don't want renters to clutter the computer with software and useless bookmarks, but on the other hand, I don't want the system to be utterly useless. One major difference between this computer and a lab computer is that I will not have access to the machine for the entire summer, while the house is being rented."

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Probably the easiest way... by chrispyman · 2004-06-02 12:05 · Score: 3, Informative

If it's a Windows machine, I'd suggest putting DeepFreeze on it. It basically resets the computer back to its original state whenever you reboot the box. I've used this on many student workstations and it works like a charm. Unfortunately it won't stop some smartypants from booting off a cd and installing Linux or something like that ;-)