KVM

[Richard Wilson]

Ray and all,

I was that person and Synergy has really helped me be more productive.
Being a paranoid kind of guy (Hey, I'm paid to be paranoid about
computer security...) I have my Synergy set up to use SSH tunnels so
that if someone should be able to listen on my private network, they'd
still get garbage...

I saw Alan's note about sending out the scripts he uses to make synergy
run and thought I'd pass mine along -- critiques welcome.  I don't know
if you tunnel your Synergy traffic through SSH or not, Alan, but you
should ;-)

On my Linux Synergy "server" I have the following in my ~/.synergy.conf
file:

section: screens
   FC4_Wrkstn:
   XP_on_laptop:
   FC5_on_laptop:
end
section: links
  FC4_Wrkstn:
      right = XP_on_laptop
      up = FC5_on_laptop
  XP_on_laptop:
      left = FC4_Wrkstn
  FC5_on_laptop:
      down = FC4_Wrkstn
end

I have FC4_Wrkstn, XP_on_laptop and FC5_on_laptop defined in my hosts
files on each system (no, I don't use those names, really).  I suppose
that I could define FC5 to have the same logical position (physically to
the right of my FC4 Workstation) as the XP laptop -- it's the same
laptop and dual boots -- but I'd have to name it the same as my XP
system, assign the same IP address and use the same SSH Keys... this is
easier.  Besides which, Linux is definitely UP above XP... ;-)

To start the server I simply run "synergys"

In my XP instance I run the command:

"C:Program Files\PuTTY\pageant.exe" "C:path\to\my\id_rsa.ppk"

This sets up a "trust" relationship between my XP laptop and my Linux
workstation by running an SSH agent process on XP.  It also activates
the stored tunnel I use -- traffic to local port 24800 (on the XP
system) gets sent encrypted to FC4 via SSH on port 22.  I am prompted
for a passphrase to activate this.

I then start the XP Synergy client using the Synergy GUI which pulls in
the stored settings to use localhost and port 24800 for the server.

In my FC5 environment, I use the following script to accomplish all of
this:

#!/bin/bash
#
ssh -N -f -l my_id_on_FC4 -L24800:localhost:24800 FC4
#
synergyc localhost:24800

If I haven't already started an agent process, I am prompted for a
passphrase or password.

Hopefully this helps -- Synergy is a tool I use daily -- being able to
cut and paste text from XP to Linux or vice versa using the mouse saves
me a lot of time.  Since the server and clients can be any of a number
of platforms (Win95(!) thru XP, Mac, Linux) it's a tool that almost
anyone can use.  I've even been able to convince some anti Open Source
Windows bigots to check it out.  

Richard Wilson
-------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 2006-08-06 at 19:13 -0700, Ray Cantwell wrote:
> Hello all,
>     A while back someone on the list was mentioning a piece of software 
> that was a in all essence a KVM switch, does anyone know what it was?
> Thanks,
> Ray
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