Preventing downtime and ensuring safety for public access computer

Aljaž Bratkovič (2009) Preventing downtime and ensuring safety for public access computer. EngD thesis.

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Abstract

Thesis deals with ways of preventing downtime and ensuring safety for public access computer systems. Its main part consists of several subsections. The first is devoted to the description of general concepts, such as cloning the hard disk, creating an image of hard disks and hard disk snapshots, which goal is to present and introduce the terminology necessary for understanding to the reader. The next section is devoted to testing the leading hardware and software solutions aimed at the prevention of downtime and ensuring safety for public computer systems. It contains a detailed description of installation, maintenance and working with hardware (security card) and software solutions (Deep Freeze, Norton Ghost). The key aim is to emulate the most realistic environment in which hardware and software solutions are applied and testing the solutions in that environment. Next section describes a possible solution to prevent downtime and ensuring security for public computer systems. It is based on open source programs (GRUB loader, dd), services (TFTP) and Linux operating system. The user can use that solution without understanding its structure because it offers a simple way of restoring a computer hard drive, as well as downtime prevention. This solution works even on computers that do not have a Linux distribution installed, because it uses the process of network booting. This process ensures that after a reboot, computer begins running a Bash script, which allows writing disk images from or on to the device. The conclusion describes the advantages and disadvantages of all the tested software, hardware implemented solutions, and describes their comparison.

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