Synergy

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Synergy is open source, cross platform software used to manage multiple displays (running on an Xorg display server) with a single keyboard and mouse. It can be thought of as a KVM - but only supporting keyboard and mouse. As of 2023-07-06, Synergy does not support compositors running on the Wayland protocol.[1]

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for x11-misc/synergy Lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers

gui Enable support for a graphical user interface
test Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently)

Emerge

root #emerge --ask x11-misc/synergy

Configuration

Files

  • /etc/synergy.conf - Global (system wide) configuration file.
  • ~/.synergy - Local (per user) configuration directory.

Service

See man 1 synergys for Synergy service options.

Gentoo does not presently include OpenRC or systemd service scripts for Synergy.

Encryption

The Synergy wiki upstream provides details for enabling encryption between the client/server connection(s).

In short, copy the bundled encryption plugin to the Synergy user's home directory:

user $mkdir -p ~/.synergy/plugins
user $cp /usr/lib64/synergy/plugins/libns.so ~/.synergy/plugins

Next, generate the certificate:

Usage

There are a few executable files that are merged after the compilation:

  • /usr/bin/syntool
  • /usr/bin/synergyc - Used to connect to a Synergy mouse/keyboard sharing server.
  • /usr/bin/synergys - Starts and controls the synergy mouse/keyboard sharing server. See man 1 synergys for options.
  • /usr/bin/qsynergy - Graphical user interface for Synergy. This can be disabled via the gui USE flag.

Troubleshooting

Wayland support

No, Synergy is not presently supported in environments running compositors using the Wayland protocol as a backend. Follow upstream's GitHub issue #4090 to stay in the loop.

Removal

Unmerge

root #emerge --ask --depclean --verbose x11-misc/synergy

See also

  • TigerVNC — a client/server software package allowing remote network access to graphical desktops.

External resources