Hardware/Periferiche/Synergy - Wiki di ubuntu-it

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Synergy? What is Synergy? Synergy is a program that will let you use one keyboard and mouse on multiple computers across a network. The computers can be running Linux, Windows, or MacOS. The computer with the keyboard and mouse is the server, and the computers with the displays to be controlled remotely are the clients. In this howto I will let you know how to get Synergy setup and running on your Ubuntu system.

Warning! Achtung! Synergy is not very secure at all! Consider - you are setting up something to allow an entirely different computer control the keyboard and mouse on your own computer! Don't try and use this anywhere unsecure! There is a way of making it more secure by running it over OpenSSH, but that is currently beyond the scope of this article. Feel free to read the documentations at the Synergy website.

QuickSynergy

There is a GUI tool available in the universe repositories for easily configuring and starting Synergy on both server- and client-side. Grabbing the quicksynergy package also installs the synergy packages themselves. Run QuickSynergy from the Accessories sub-menu. Start QuickSynergy on each machine. The machine with which you want to use the mouse and keyboard will be the 'server', enter the hostnames (not ip addresses) of the other computers in the corresponding text fields, and click start. On the 'client' computers, enter the server hostname or ip address under the 'Use' tab and click start.

Obtaining Synergy

There are a few ways to get Synergy, one of the hardest is to actually get the source code from the Synergy site at http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/index.html, compile it, configure it and run it from the command line. The easy way is to install an apt package that has already been prepared by Daniel Lutz. More information about this 'universe' package can be found at http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/net/synergy. This guide will explain how to install and use this package.

If you need to compile the latest version for compatability reasons, see the section below on building from source.

The first thing that needs done is to actually install the package. There are two ways of doing this, through the command line, or through Synaptic Package Manager.

Synaptic Package Manager

Note: you will need to be connected to the internet for this.

1. Add the universe package repository to your repository list. If you have not done this already, you can find out how to do it at: UniversePackages

2. Click the icon at the top, and select Search. In the field type "synergy".

3. Click the box next to synergy, and select mark for installation. If your search for synergy comes up blank, check for obvious mistakes first, such as the spelling of synergy, and then make sure that you have correctly added the universe repository to your repository list.

4. Click the Apply icon at the top and watch it install.

Installing from the Command Line

Synergy is kept in the universe package list, so you will have to uncomment the universe repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list. If you don't know how to do it go here Repositories/Ubuntu (for others (Kubuntu, etc) go to the bottom of that page for links).

Next, this will download lists of any new packages/etc and will install synergy:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install synergy

Building Synergy From Source

If you've already installed the package for Synergy, this step is not neccecary, you can proceed to the section on Configuring Synergy below.

Go to http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ to download the latest source tarball (stable or experimental) and extract it to your home directory.

Open a terminal window and change to the directory you just extracted (should be found at ~/synergy-x.x.x where x.x.x is the version number).

First we need to make sure we have all the right tools:

sudo apt-get install libxtst-dev
sudo apt-get install build-essential

Now we can setup the build environment and compile then install:

sudo ./configure -x-libraries /usr/lib -x-includes /usr/includes
sudo make install

These will move the executables to the directory referenced in the configuration instructions later:

sudo mv /usr/local/bin/synergyc /usr/bin
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/synergys /usr/bin

Once the install is finished, you can remove the Synergy folder you extracted earlier and continue to Configuring Synergy.

Configuring Synergy

Now that Synergy is installed, what you need to do is configure it. BUT, you have to configure at least two machines because without two machines using Synergy makes no sense. I will show you the configuration for a server and a client. I will only show the Ubuntu configuration's, please refer to the Synergy site for instructions on configuring other systems.

Server Configuration

.synergy.conf can be created in your "Home Folder".

Here is a copy of my server's configuration.

section: screens
        ubuntu42:
        arthur:
end
section: links
        ubuntu42:
                right = arthur
        arthur:
                left = ubuntu42

end

The meaning of the names in the configuration are as follows. Ubuntu42 is my main machine which acts as a server for Synergy. Arthur is the client(another Ubuntu machine(laptop)) that I use my desktop's keyboard and mouse with. Section is where you lay out different configurations Screens is where you set the host names of the computers going to be used. Links is what side the mouse will leave the screen of one computer to reach the desktop of the other. So Ubuntu42 is set to the left of Arthur, so when I drag the mouse off the right hand side of Ubuntu42's screen it appears on Arthur's left hand side of the screen. And vice versa. You can set the Links to go out the top of the screen and come in the top of the other screen, you can also set up multiple computers. Multiple here, of course, meaning more than two.

Client Configuration

There is none you just install

Running Synergy

From the server you run the command

bash:~$ synergys -f --config synergy.conf

and that will start running the server in the foreground. If the synergy server works without any issue, do the following.

bash:~$ mv synergy.conf ~/.synergy.conf

If you do the above, you will be able to start synergy server simply by doing

bash:~$ synergys

From a client(In this howto the client being Ubuntu), you would issue the command

bash:~$ synergyc -f <ip address of server>

and that will start the client looking for the server of said address.

Note: the -f command tells Synergy to run it in the foreground, so that you will be able to output for debugging. If everything works fine, and you are able to move your mouse around, issue the the command

synergyc <ip.address.of.server>

and you will be up and running.

Making it Autostart, Gnome

You probably don't want to have a synergy terminal window open all of the time, so your next step will be to set it up to run as a service.

For those of you who are using a Windows machine as well as Ubuntu, a little gotcha is that when you set Synergy to run at startup, you will also have to start the service in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services, or by rebooting your computer.

Adding Synergy as an autostarting feature of Gnome is a bit more complicated.

But not too painful if you are familar with how Gnome handles login scripts.

The easiest way is probably to pop open a terminal and type the appropriate line without the '-f' option, then you can safely close the terminal and Synergy will continue to run.

If you use some sort of graphical login screen, it is pretty easy to have it autostart. In Ubuntu you can go to your...

System Menu->Preferences->Sessions, click the Startup Programs tab, click "Add" then just enter the Startup Command:

synergys --config synergy.conf

then click OK & close. This will start the server on a user session basis, not globally.

You can also add a little script in the /etc/X11/Xsession.d folder with a command that says to run it with the bash shell, and then the bash command you use to start synergy.

The name and location of this file is crucial! The file must start with two digits, to specify the order. It really doesn't matter where it is or what the rest of the name is though. I named mine 12synergy, 22synergy, 32synergy and 54synergy. Sadly, this does not allow you to use synergy on the login screen, but there is a way to do this fortunately for those whom need a way to also use the keyboard prior to final login. You are going to also edit 2 existing files within the X11 directory pertaining to gdm.

For a client, your new file should look like this, where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the ip address of your server:

#/bin/bash
/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergyc xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Warning: if you put the -f into the command, you'll get a script that doesn't stop and let gnome finish loading!

We want the client to be running when gdm is running, prior to logging in. Add the following to /etc/gdm/Init/Default: (just add them to the top of the file)

/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergyc xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

(In 7.10 modification of the PreSession script doesn't seem to be needed) For the client file we must also edit the PreSession script to kill our synergy process running as root before the Xsession scripts run it as user. The file is /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default and it should look like this:

#
# Note that any setup should come before the sessreg command as
# that must be 'exec'ed for the pid to be correct (sessreg uses the parent
# pid)
#
# Note that output goes into the .xsession-errors file for easy debugging
#
PATH="/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R6/bin:/opt/X11R6/bin:$PATH:/bin:/usr/bin"

gdmwhich () {
  COMMAND="$1"
  OUTPUT=
  IFS=:
  for dir in $PATH
  do
    if test -x "$dir/$COMMAND" ; then
      if test "x$OUTPUT" = "x" ; then
        OUTPUT="$dir/$COMMAND"
      fi
    fi
  done
  unset IFS
  echo "$OUTPUT"
}

# synergyc process, running as root, ends here. This is the last script in the gdm login sequence before things start running as user.
/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1

XSETROOT=`gdmwhich xsetroot`
if [ "x$XSETROOT" != "x" ] ; then
        # Try to snarf the BackgroundColor from the config file
        BACKCOLOR=`grep '^BackgroundColor' /etc/gdm/gdm.conf | sed 's/^.*=\(.*\)$/\1/'`
        if [ "x$BACKCOLOR" = "x" ]; then
                BACKCOLOR="#76848F"
        fi
        "$XSETROOT" -cursor_name left_ptr -solid "$BACKCOLOR"
fi


SESSREG=`gdmwhich sessreg`
if [ "x$SESSREG" != "x" ] ; then
        # some output for easy debugging
        echo "$0: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp"
        echo "$0: running: $SESSREG -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x \"$X_SERVERS\" -h \"$REMOTE_HOST\" -l \"$DISPLAY$
        exec "$SESSREG" -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "$X_SERVERS" -h "$REMOTE_HOST" -l "$DISPLAY" "$USER"
        # this is not reached
fi

# some output for easy debugging
echo "$0: could not find the sessreg utility, cannot update wtmp and utmp"
exit 0

Warning: if you put the -f into the command, you'll get a script that doesn't stop and let gnome finish loading!

For a server, it should look something like this:

Recap: Name this file 12synergy and place it into the /etc/X11/Xsession.d directory!

#/bin/bash
/usr/bin/killall synergys
sleep 1
synergys --config /full/path/to/synergy.conf

Recap: The server file we must edit, it is contained within /etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default file!

#
# Note that any setup should come before the sessreg command as
# that must be 'exec'ed for the pid to be correct (sessreg uses the parent
# pid)
#
# Note that output goes into the .xsession-errors file for easy debugging
#
PATH="/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R6/bin:/opt/X11R6/bin:$PATH:/bin:/usr/bin"

gdmwhich () {
  COMMAND="$1"
  OUTPUT=
  IFS=:
  for dir in $PATH
  do
    if test -x "$dir/$COMMAND" ; then
      if test "x$OUTPUT" = "x" ; then
        OUTPUT="$dir/$COMMAND"
      fi
    fi
  done
  unset IFS
  echo "$OUTPUT"
}
#Synergy Server Starts at login and dies at logoff!
/usr/bin/killall synergys
sleep 1
synergys --config /full/path/to/synergy.conf


XSETROOT=`gdmwhich xsetroot`
if [ "x$XSETROOT" != "x" ] ; then
        # Try to snarf the BackgroundColor from the config file
        BACKCOLOR=`grep '^BackgroundColor' /etc/gdm/gdm.conf | sed 's/^.*=\(.*\)$/\1/'`
        if [ "x$BACKCOLOR" = "x" ]; then
                BACKCOLOR="#76848F"
        fi
        "$XSETROOT" -cursor_name left_ptr -solid "$BACKCOLOR"
fi


SESSREG=`gdmwhich sessreg`
if [ "x$SESSREG" != "x" ] ; then
        # some output for easy debugging
        echo "$0: Registering your session with wtmp and utmp"
        echo "$0: running: $SESSREG -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x \"$X_SERVERS\" -h \"$REMOTE_HOST\" -l \"$DISPLAY$
        exec "$SESSREG" -a -w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "$X_SERVERS" -h "$REMOTE_HOST" -l "$DISPLAY" "$USER"
        # this is not reached
fi

# some output for easy debugging
echo "$0: could not find the sessreg utility, cannot update wtmp and utmp"
exit 0

Warning: if you put the -f into the command, you'll get a script that doesn't stop and let gnome finish loading!

Making it Autostart, KDE

This makes synergy start soon after your KDE desktop appears, after you have logged in.

Go to ~/.kde/Autostart

right click > Create New > File > Link to Application

in the general tab, give it a name like runsynergy.

application tab: type this in the "Command:" field: synergyc <replace with the server's IP>

click OK. A file called runsynergy.desktop is created. if done correctly this works in KDE 3.5.5

Creating the .desktop file manually

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=
Comment[en_US]=
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=synergyc <replace with the server's IP>
GenericName=
GenericName[en_US]=
Icon=
MimeType=
Name=
Name[en_US]=
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-DCOP-ServiceType=
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=desktop_kdebase

Client Autostart at login screen

We want the client to be running when kdm is running, prior to logging in. Add the following to /etc/kde3/kdm/Xsetup: (just add them to the end of the file)

/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergyc xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

For the client file we must also edit the Xstartup script to kill our synergy process running as root before the Xsession scripts run it as user. The file is /etc/kde3/kdm/Xstartup and it should look like this:

# Xstartup - run as root before session starts

PATH="$PATH:/usr/bin/X11"

if [ -e /etc/nologin ]; then
  # always display the nologin message, if possible
  if [ -s /etc/nologin ] && which xmessage > /dev/null 2>&1; then
    xmessage -file /etc/nologin -geometry 640x480
  fi
  if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ] && \
     ! grep -qs '^ignore-nologin' /etc/kde3/kdm/kdm.options; then
    exit 1
  fi
fi

# synergyc process, running as root, ends here. This is the last script in the gdm login sequence before things start running as user.
/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1

if grep -qs '^use-sessreg' /etc/kde3/kdm/kdm.options && \
   which sessreg > /dev/null 2>&1; then
      exec sessreg -a -l "$DISPLAY" -u /var/run/utmp \
                   -h "`echo $DISPLAY | cut -d: -f1`" "$USER"
      # NOTREACHED
fi

Warning: if you put the -f into the command, you'll get a script that doesn't stop and let kde finish loading!

Server Autostart at login screen, GDM

To make sure synergy is running at all times, the following has to happen: First, synergy is started when the X server loads (before a user logs in). Then, synergy is killed and restarted when a user logs in. When the user logs out, synergy is killed and restarted. To make this happen under GNOME, the following must happen:

On the client

Edit /etc/gdm/Init/Default with the command

sudo gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default

At the end of the file, after the last fi line but before the line that says exit 0 add the following:

# ADDED FOR SYNERGY
/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergyc <HOST NAME>
# END SYNERGY

Be sure to replace <HOST NAME> with the host name or IP address of the computer running synergys.

Then, edit /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default with the command

sudo gedit /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default

This will likely create a new file. Add the following to the file (placing the code at the end of the file if there's already stuff there):

# SYNERGY STUFF
/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
# END

Now, create a session file to run synergyc when someone logs in with the following command

sudo gedit /etc/X11/Xsession.d/85synergyc

This will create a new file, place the following in the file:

/usr/bin/killall synergyc
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergyc <HOST NAME>

Be sure to replace <HOST NAME> with the host name or IP address of the computer running synergys. Lastly, we must make the file executable with this command:

 sudo chmod a+x /etc/X11/Xsession.d/85synergyc

We're good to go with synergyc, the setup for synergys is almost identical:

For the server

Edit /etc/gdm/Init/Default with the command

sudo gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default

At the end of the file, after the last fi line but before the line that says exit 0 add the following:

# ADDED FOR SYNERGY
/usr/bin/killall synergys
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergys
# END SYNERGY

Then, edit /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default with the command

sudo gedit /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default

This will likely create a new file. Add the following to the file (placing the code at the end of the file if there's already stuff there):

# SYNERGY STUFF
/usr/bin/killall synergys
sleep 1
# END

Now, create a session file to run synergyc when someone logs in with the following command

sudo gedit /etc/X11/Xsession.d/85synergys

This will create a new file, place the following in the file:

/usr/bin/killall synergys
sleep 1
/usr/bin/synergys

Lastly, we must make the file executable with this command:

 sudo chmod a+x /etc/X11/Xsession.d/85synergys

We're good to go with synergys!

Wrapup

Now that you have synergy installed and running, you can copy and paste between machines and also just have all out fun with the keyboard and mouse on both/or more machines. I use Synergy all the time, that way I can write in one window and talk/chat/read mail in another window. It makes using multiple computers a lot easier and a lot more fun.

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