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I have a few Ubuntu boxes that are locked down and used as Kiosks. Whilst we aim to turn them all off safely, the same can not be said for everyone.

The machines use SSDs and there isn't moving hard drives to worry about.

So far, out of about 1000 unexpected shutdowns that have been logged, other than a file scan on a few during startup, there has been no issues sighted and whilst I hope it stays that way, I can't count on it.

There is nothing that needs to persist between sessions and I was wondering if there is anything that can be done to make them more robust?

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If you mean by "Kiosk" that they are closed off from external interference, waterproofed, dustproofed, the only additional thing you can do is a cheap UPS. You can find a USB UPS from 50 USD but whether they're Linux compatible is another question... – Fabby Jan 14 '15 at 22:26
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@Fabby - That gives me an idea. If you add a smart battery backup instead of a plain UPS, it can sense when power has been removed and send message to your system which can be used to initiate a normal shutdown. The battery will provide the power while the shutdown is being performed. I had an old APC which talked over a serial port. I'm sure all the new ones use USB. – Joe Jan 17 '15 at 19:01
    
This is for if they unplug it. If they're actually turning off a power switch, you can replace the power switch with one that just tells the computer to shutdown. I don't know how to do that, but it should be fairly easy. – Joe Jan 17 '15 at 19:07
    
Indeed! Shall I convert that to an answer??? (as "smart battery" = "USB UPS") – Fabby Jan 17 '15 at 20:02
    
Well... whilst a battery would work, it isn't really that viable on this project... I'm really looking to learn how to build more of an embedded/in memory type approach where state isn't important and trying to build the machine to be bullet proof/fault resistant... – wilhil Jan 17 '15 at 22:19

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