{"id":252,"date":"2011-12-15T19:45:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T07:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mdickinson.dnsalias.org\/php\/wordpress\/?p=252"},"modified":"2011-12-15T19:45:46","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T07:45:46","slug":"experiences-with-synergy-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/?p=252","title":{"rendered":"Experiences with Synergy – cool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Synergy<\/a> is a free application to allow a ‘server’ to provide the mouse and keyboard input to other machines. So if you have a lot of machines around you and can see all their screens then synergy<\/b> will allow you to control them all from one mouse and keyboard.<\/p>\n

For my setup I used as a client (slave) a Windows 7 home premium 64 bit server, and the server (the one with the master keyboard and mouse) was a Fedora Core 16 Linux server.<\/p>\n

In the FAQ it does say the main difference between the synergy<\/b> software solution and a hardware KVM switch is that the KVM switch handles video, in that one screen can also be used if a KVM is used.<\/p>\n

However for the situation I was looking at a KVM was counter-productive. As we all know the KVM solution ‘switches’ the screen to whatever server is being worked on, effectively hiding other screens. In my environment I needed to see the screens of both machines as the one I would not normally be looking at in a KVM solution could require immediate attention (business\/client IRC and email notifications that need to be responded to) which would be hidden with a KVM while I burried myself in coding (followed by the occasional oops debugging) on my main machine.<\/p>\n

The synergy<\/b> solution allows both screens to be visible so I can see events on both and switching from one screen to the other (from one PC to another) whilst using the same mouse and keyboard is just a case of dragging the mouse to the other screen. <\/p>\n

Note: while I am only using two machines the examples are for three, and I suppose the upper limit is only how many screens (with the server base units nearby attached to the screens of course) you can fit onto your desktop.<\/p>\n

The Synergy website<\/a> has RPMs for most Linux distibutions, as well as for windows and OSX. I downloaded the latest stable for Windows (there are i386 versions but I’m 64bit so used that one) to use as a client (slave) and rather than download the rpm from the synergy<\/b> site I found Fedora repositories had synergy so used yum to install it onto my main desktop as the server, the desktop running Fedora of course.<\/p>\n

The yum download didn’t create a \/etc\/synergy.conf sample file but the examples on the synergy<\/b> site were easy to follow and I had one typed up and usable in no time.<\/p>\n

I chose not to enable autostart on the ‘slave’ Windows 7 machine, as it’s a laptop and as it’s not always going to be connected to my home network autostart would be silly; unless I wanted endless unable to connect to server messages. I did try it and it started ok on a reboot, so if you have desktop ‘slaves’ rather than portable machines by all means enable autostart.<\/p>\n

Also on the server side, the one with the keyboard and mouse, I chose to start it manually also so I can switch configuration files as needed; between a home and work laptop. It runs as any non-privileged user without any problems so easy to do.<\/p>\n

So, you now know it was easy to setup, but how did it work ?.<\/em><\/b><\/p>\n

Flawlessly actually.<\/p>\n

On the ‘slave’ machine I even fired up a virtualbox system and mouse and keyboard maintained control even after focus was in the virtual machine. It had no problems with the keyboard and mouse on the server controlling a ‘slave’ running a citrix desktop either. <\/p>\n

Or basically, it just works.<\/p>\n

Well it works for the screens I can see :-). I still have to ssh\/rdp into the three machines in my ‘server bedroom’ at the far end of the house.<\/p>\n

Give it a try. The ‘server’ that has the keyboard and mouse doesn’t have to be a Linux server; server and client seem to be interchangeable between Windows Linux and OSX. But my main desktops are all Linux, and laptops all windows, so thats what I tested on.<\/p>\n

The Synergy site is at http:\/\/synergy-foss.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Synergy is a free application to allow a ‘server’ to provide the mouse and keyboard input to other machines. So if you have a lot of machines around you and can see all their screens then synergy will allow you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254,"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdickinson.dyndns.org\/php\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}