Under Links you should see a
translation of your entries that looks
something like this: <serverMachine>
is left of <clientMachine> and <client-Machine> is right of <serverMachine>.
Click OK. Usually this minimalist configuration is sufficient to set up mouse
and keyboard controls, but if you have
problems using special keys such as
Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock,
you can change their behavior from
this configuration dialog box as well. (I
haven’t encountered problems with
these keys when working with Windows and Mac OS X computers.)
Additionally, you can configure
other settings of the program, such as
whether it should wait a small amount
of time before it switches to the other
screen, by clicking the Options button.
Synergy uses TCP port 24800 to transmit the keys and mouse movements
between the client and server computer, so be sure to configure any
intermediary firewalls to allow this
network traffic. Click the Advanced
button to change the port or to specify an interface for Synergy to listen
on—for example, if you have a laptop
with both a wireless and a LAN interface and you want Synergy to use a
particular interface.
When you’re ready, click the Test
button. You’ll see the Synergy program
confirm that it has started.
Configuring the Server for UNIX
In concept, you configure a Synergy
server on UNIX and Mac much like you
do on Windows—essentially, you edit
a text file. Within the Synergy-extracted folders, you edit the synergy.conf file,
which contains all the configuration
options for either a primary or secondary screen configuration.
Figure 1 shows a simple configuration file that mimics the setup I discussed in the previous section. The
first section, titled section: screens, lists
each of the screens identified by its
host name. The second section, titled section: links, defines the characteristics of the screens, such as their position relative to the other screens. ServerMachine and clientMachine represent the host names of the two systems that will share the keyboard
and mouse. The third section, titled section: aliases, defines aliases for the
computers. You can configure an alias
for either the server or the client
depending on your particular environment.
After you’ve edited the synergy
.conf file, type the following on a command line
synergys -f --config synergy.conf
to start the Synergy program on the
server. The -f parameter tells the program to run in the foreground. When
you’re satisfied with the configuration,
omit the -f and the program will run
in the background.
Configuring the Clients
Next, configure all the client screens.
On a Windows computer, run the
same Synergy program described previously in the server setup, but instead
of specifying this computer as a
server, click Use another Computer’s
shared keyboard and mouse (client), as Figure 2 shows. On a UNIX or Mac
computer, enter
synergyc -f <serverMachine>
at the command line. The client
should connect to the server. If any
warnings occur, you’ll see them on both
the client and server Synergy status
screens. One example of an error-causing condition is an incorrectly or
inadequately identified host name. To
fix this problem, you might add the
FQDN or IP address as an alias to help
Synergy find the computer.
If you’re successful, you’ll see a
connected status message. In Windows, Synergy displays an icon showing the connected state.
Running with the -f parameter is
useful. In this test mode, Synergy
shows status and log messages to
help troubleshoot any connection
problems. If your systems won’t connect, check whether a host firewall is
blocking the Synergy traffic. Also
check that you set up the screen relationships properly and that your
screen names are correctly recognized
by Synergy. For example, your host
name might be serverMachine, but
Synergy recognizes it as serverMachine .domain.local.
Final Caveats
Synergy provides a lightweight
method of sharing a keyboard and
mouse among different platforms and
computers. However, you should be
aware of some caveats: Synergy
doesn’t perform authentication when
a client connects to a server, and Synergy doesn’t encrypt the data transmitted from a server’s keyboard when
it’s sent to a client. The Synergy Web
site offers a step-by-step solution for
using Secure Shell (SSH) to perform
both functions, which you’ll want to
investigate if you’re using Synergy in
an untrusted network.