Setting up Synergy on UNIX workstations to share mouse and keyboards

Published: 30-May-2025 - Last Updated: 30-May-2025

When I first read about Synergy when I was kid, I was so excited about it. I had a slight obsession with KVMs, and Synergy seemed like an even cooler experience. I remember I set it up on 2 Windows XP computers, but I think I had issues getting it to work on boot up, so I never ended up using it much.

Now, I'd like to get it working on some of my UNIX workstations since keyboards and mice take up too much space. Although I mostly access the computers via terminal or remote X session, I still like to have a physical setup that I can use.

I will add to this page when I setup more systems with synergy.

Synergy 1.2.8

This is the last release before they moved to cmake, so this is the one I used.

Solaris 9

Build & Install

Building was easy. I have GNU binutils and GCC.
GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.24
gcc version 4.2.4
I don't have a good list of everything installed for this system.

Server Configuration

XDM doesn't allow the mouse or keyboard to be shared, so we only put the startup in Xsession.d. You have to login before you can share the mouse and keyboard.

/usr/dt/config/Xsession.d/0099.synergys :

ps -ef | grep synergys | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill
sleep 1
/usr/local/bin/synergys --config /etc/synergy.conf

chmod +x /usr/dt/config/Xsession.d/0099.synergys

Config file: /etc/synergy.conf

section: screens
    blade150:
    c360:
end
section: links
    blade150:
       right = c360
    c360:
       left = blade150
end

HP-UX 11.11

Build & Install

You must have either gnu ld or a fully patched HP ld with patch PHSS_39749. This can be found on the 2009-12 Support Plus CD. See my blog entry about setting up my C360 for specifics.
If you don't, you will get an error about XTest not existing. This is due to a linker error.

I also used GNU make 1.79 to build it. HP's make may or may not work.

./configure
make
make install

There are many keymaps that need commented out in lib/platform/CXWindowsUtil.cpp since HP-UX 11.11 X11 headers do not have them. Then we need automake aclocal-1.6 to make since we changed the file. See my setup blog for details.
You can download the modified file here: https://gist.github.com/nsafran1217/6ca46271ab33d60256d0ee4c7797c94f

With the modified file, it build and works just fine.

Client Configuration

We want synergy to startup automatically at dtlogin so we can interact with the login screen. Note that you must have a mouse and keyboard connected to the computer, otherwise X will fail to start. There is a way around this, but I didn't configure that. I just leave a mouse and keyboard connected.

I ignored the warning in these files about not modifying them.
My synergy server's name is blade150

/usr/dt/config/Xsetup :

ps -ef | grep synergyc | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill
sleep 1
/usr/local/bin/synergyc blade150

/usr/dt/config/Xstartup :

ps -ef | grep synergyc | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill
sleep 1

/usr/dt/config/Xsession.d/0099.synergyc :

ps -ef | grep synergyc | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill
sleep 1
/usr/local/bin/synergyc blade150