KVM Switch Based Software

Introduction

synergy: [noun] a mutually advantageous conjunction of distinct elements

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all. Learn more about how it works.

Synergy is open source and released under the GNU Public License (GPL).

System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me (the Windows 95 family)
• Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP (the Windows NT family)
• Mac OS X 10.2 or higher
• Unix
  • X Windows version 11 revision 4 or up
  • XTEST extension
    (use "xdpyinfo | grep XTEST" to check for XTEST)

All systems must support TCP/IP networking.

"Unix" includes Linux, Solaris, Irix and other variants. Synergy has only been extensively tested on Linux and may not work completely or at all on other versions of Unix. Patches are welcome (including patches that package binaries) at the patches page.

The Mac OS X port is incomplete. It does not synchronize the screen saver, only text clipboard data works (i.e. HTML and bitmap data do not work), the cursor won't hide when not on the screen, and there may be problems with mouse wheel acceleration. Other problems should be filed as bugs.

1. Install Synergy
$ sudo apt-get install synergy
$ sudo aptitude install synergy

2. Configure Synergy
Configuration file is saved in /etc/synergy.conf and configuration file sample is saved in /usr/share/doc/synergy/examples.
You could copy it to /etc and edit the file.

There are four main section in synergy.conf, screen, link, aliases and options.
Every section started with section word followed by section name and finished with end word.

- Screen contain computer name which share the keyboard and mouse.
Example:
section: screens
ubuntu:
fedora:
end

- Links, contain the position of main screen and client screen
section: links
ubuntu:
right = fedora
fedora:
left ubuntu
end

- Aliases
section: aliases
ubuntu:
192.168.1.1
fedora:
192.168.1.2
end

- Options, to lock keyboard and mouse in a screen by press F2
section: options
keystroke(f12) = lockCursorToScreen(toggle)
end

3. Running Synergy
$ synergys -f --name ubuntu
On the client