Have you ever had so many computers in the same room, and wished you could just share the keyboard and mouse from your main machine and access the others over your home network?
Set Up Synergy and Share A Single Keyboard and Mouse Over Your Network
What is Synergy?
Synergy created by Richard Lee and Adam Feder, is a keyboard and mouse sharing software. It enables you to have multiple computers connected to your home or work network, and seamlessly share keyboard and mouse across all computers.
Nowadays Synergy is a paid application, but on this page, you can download the latest free edition of Synergy, which works like a charm. It’s pretty much flawless and allows you to share your keyboard and mouse on multiple computers for free.
With this post, I’ll explain how to set up Synergy and share your keyboard and mouse straight away.
Setting Up Synergy
Download Synergy 1.4.18 (Select the version you need):
Windows – Synergy 32bit / Synergy 64bit
Debian & Ubuntu Linux – Synergy 32bit / Synergy 64bit
Red Hat & Fedora Linux – Synergy 32bit / Synergy 64bit
Mac – 10.9
Source – Synergy Source.tar.gz
Let’s Configure Synergy
Run the Synergy Set up, once it’s downloaded, on your main computer.
Select your language, and click ”Next”.
Select ”Not interested”, and click ”Next”.
Now we want to set the main computer as a server, so select ”Server (new setup)”, and click ”Next”.
With this screen, it’s your choice if you would like to encrypt your network traffic, to stop people from seeing passwords, etc. that you type. For this post, I’m just going to click ”Finish”.
Now we have installed Synergy, boot it up if it hasn’t started straight away and you should see the screen below. We need to configure the server, so hit ”Configure Server…”.
This screen allows us to add multiple computers to your Synergy server. To add another PC click and drag the monitor in the top right corner, into a square below. The position where you add the second monitor will be the direction you need to move your mouse off the screen of your primary pc. Once you’ve done that, double click on the ”Unnamed” monitor, so we configure it.
If you wish, you can give your unnamed monitor a custom name, I’ve just called mine ”Computer 2” for this post.
The most important thing we need to do on this screen is added its ”Aliases”. You need to add its IP address (Learn how to set up a static IP address here), and its default computer name (How to find out the computer name here).
Once completed, click ”OK”, and then ”OK” again.
Configure Synergy On Client Computer
Move to your second computer and start the installation of Synergy again. Remember to select ”Client (add to setup), rather than Server, and click ”Next”.
Again if you added encryption, you’ll need to enter the password you used before, if not, go ahead and click ”Finish”.
Again boot up Synergy if it hasn’t done so already and tick the box ”Client (use another computer’s keyboard and mouse):”.
Add the ”Server IP:” of the server computer (primary pc), and hit ”Apply”, and then ”Start”.
Go over to your Synergy window on your primary server pc, and select ”Start”.
A few seconds later you should see the message ”Client has connected”.
You’re done! You can now share keyboard and mouse on multiple computers.