System Maintenance Panel
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This page provides documentation on using Kicksecure's System Maintenance Panel.
Introduction
The System Maintenance Panel (sysmaint-panel) allows the user to accomplish several common system maintenance and administration tools. It can be used to install, remove, and update software, create and remove user accounts, and enable or disable password protection and autologin for user accounts. On a live Kicksecure ISO, it also can launch the Calamares installer. In a typical desktop session and when using Kicksecure for Qubes, the System Maintenance Panel acts as a normal application. The panel can also provide a minimal desktop session, which can be accessed by booting into PERSISTENT mode SYSMAINT if user-sysmaint-split is installed.[1]
Most of the features offered by the system maintenance panel require root access to use.
How-to: Manually Run systemcheck
The System Maintenance Panel can be launched two different ways:
1: If user-sysmaint-split is not installed, complete the following steps:
Start Menu → System → systemcheck
2: If user-sysmaint-split is installed, reboot the system and select PERSISTENT mode SYSMAINT as the boot mode. Once logged into account sysmaint, the System Maintenance Panel will appear.
Software Updates
To check for available software updates, click "Check for Updates". A terminal window will open, with sudo apt update running inside. Once apt is finished checking for updates, you will be shown how many updates are available.
To install any available software updates, click "Install Updates". A terminal window will open, with sudo apt full-upgrade running inside. If there are updates to be installed, you will be asked whether you really want to proceed with installing updates or not. To proceed, press y, then press Enter.
As you install and remove software, you may end up with packages installed on your system that are no longer necessary. You can use the "Remove Unused Packages" button to uninstall these packages, while leaving their configuration files intact in case you need to install them again later. If you want to remove the configuration files of unneeded packages when uninstalling them, click "Purge Unused Packages".
System Administration
The "Manage Passwords" and "Manage GUI Autologin" buttons will allow you to change the password or autologin status for a user account. These buttons will launch the pwchange and autologinchange utilities, respectively. See Login for more details.
To run the systemcheck utility, click "Check System Status". This will run several health and security checks on the system and report back the results. See Systemcheck for more details.
If you are administering a multi-user system, you may need to create user accounts for new users, or delete user accounts for users who are no longer authorized to access the system. The "Create User" and "Remove User" buttons can be used for these tasks.
To search for and install software, use the "Install Software" button. A window will appear, from which you can search for and install software from the apt repositories. Most of the software available from here is provided by the Debian project.
Footnotes
- ↑ The original purpose of the sysmaint panel was to provide a minimal desktop environment for the
PERSISTENT mode SYSMAINTboot mode provided by user-sysmaint-split. However, the panel can also be used for easy system maintenance on systems without user-sysmaint-split.
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