Cerberus is the 3-screen display board currently located outside the clubroom by the door.

UCC Machine History

Cerberus is was donated to the clubroom in 2015 from the UWA Business School. It sat around outside before it was installed with it's previous setup by [BG3] and [TBB].

Since a reinstall done by [FVP] in February 2018 the machine now runs Linux using nodm (display manager) with matchbox (window manager) and Firefox to display a custom webpage for the content.

Current Machine Tasks

  • Display events and coke prices
  • Display UCC propaganda

Managing Cerberus content

Look in /services/http/kiosk/ to find the HTML/JS/CSS source for Cerberus.

  • It is recommended to have a basic understanding of Javascript in order to modify the items displayed on Cerberus.
  • The file script/config.js contains all the relevant information for configuring Cerberus.


"Low-level" configuration

Current Software Configuration

  • X11 (using static custom configuration at /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-cerberus.conf)

  • VNC (listens on localhost:5900)

  • nodm (starts X session as user cerberus with custom session script at /usr/local/bin/cerberus-session)

  • matchbox-window-manager (minimal window manager, no custom configuration required)

  • Firefox (opened by cerberus-session and set fullscreen with xdotool to send F11 key): opens https://www.ucc.asn.au/kiosk/index.html.

Current hardware configuration

  • Three 4:3 1280x1024 19" screens: minimum approximately 385x345mm , maximum approximately 415x355mm
    • 2*DVI, 1*VGA, was
      • upper screen connected to DVI-1

      • middle screen connected to DVI-0

      • lower screen connected to DisplayPort-0

      • was Sony 414x350mm SDM-95F 2005-08 (2/3 failed @2020)
  • AMD Radeon HD 5850 dedicated graphics
    • See above-mentioned Xorg config for details.
  • 8GB DDR3 RAM (4x2GB)
  • Bluetooth mouse/keyboard combo; placed on top of the shelf, right of the main UCC door.

Thanks to:

  • UWA Business School for their donation.
  • [FVP], [BG3], [TBB] for setting up Cerberus