Installing And Configuring Synergy

Messing around at work today I realized how nice of a program Synergy is and how easy it can make things if you simultaneously run two or more computers. At work I have Synergy installed between a test server and my primary desktop. These two computers sit side by side on my desk but I don’t always use both. When I do need to it’s convenient to just drag my cursor over to the other desktop and do what I need to do.

What Is Synergy…?

For anyone that doesn’t know, Synergy basically allows you to control two separate computer desktops over a network as if they were setup on a multi-display on the same computer. You can drag your cursor from one desktop to the other controlling both desktops with one keyboard and mouse. Everything is passed through your network TCP/IP connection. Freakin’ awesome right? The cool thing is it’s easy to set up and compatible with multiple operating systems.

I want to set this up at home over my wireless network to control my desktop and my netbook. I don’t use my netbook all that much at home but once and a while I would like to just drag my cursor over to my netbooks desktop to do something, run a command, copy some files, whatever. It’s more of a convenience than a necessity at this point but what the hell right?

To setup Synergy first you’ll need either the IP addresses of the client and server or the network name of each. If you’re not sure you can run ifconfig (ipconfig for windows) in a terminal on each computer and look for the inet addr: number. This will give you your computers IP address on your network.

Next you’ll need to install Synergy on both computers. Both of my computers are runing Ubuntu 9.04 so it shouldn’t take a whole lot other than running a command in the terminal. To install from the terminal run:

sudo apt-get install synergy

Please note: Synergy may be included in the default 9.04 install.

Next you’ll need to configure the synergy server and clients. To configure the server run in your terminal:

sudo nano /etc/synergy.conf

This will open the Synergy configuration file. Inside that file you’ll setup your computers and how they are linked to eachother. The following is my setup.

section: screens
	rob-desktop:
	rob-netbook:
end
 
section: aliases
	rob-desktop:
		192.168.2.3
	rob-netbook:
		192.168.2.4
end
 
section: links
	rob-desktop:
		left = rob-netbook
	rob-netbook:
		right = rob-desktop
end

Looking at my configuration you can see how the .conf files is broken down. First the desktop screens are defined and then their relation to eachother. You can also use up and down as directions. It is possible to setup multiple computers.

Next you’ll need to test your configuration. Using the computer that you’ve set up as the Synergy server, run in the terminal:

synergys -f --config /etc/synergy.conf

This will start the server. Next you’ll want to run the other computer as a client. To do so run in client computers terminal:

synergyc -f 192.168.2.3

This calls the client to the servers IP address giving control to the severs keyboard and mouse over the clients desktop. If all is well and working you can create an entry in Ubuntu’s Startup Applications to automatically start Synergy when our computers boot up. To do so go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications and enter the following information.

Server:

Open Startup Applications Preferences and click on “Add”. In the Add Startup Program dialogue enter the folowing:

Name: Synergy Server Startup
Command: synergys –config /etc/synergy.conf
Comment: Add a comment if necessary

Client:

Open Startup Applications Preferences and click on “Add”. In the Add Startup Program dialogue enter the folowing:

Name: Synergy Client Startup
Command: synergyc 192.168.2.3
Comment: Add a comment if necessary

Restart both computers and Synergy should start up on its own and both client and server should connect perfectly. Over a wireless network there may be some latentcy which is sort of to be expected. If you would like to know more or get Synergy for other operating systems check out their website: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/index.html.

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