Configuring Quick Synergy to start automatically

[CJ Tres]

On 12/14/2011 10:17 AM, Dave Woyciesjes wrote:
xxxxx>
>>> So you got a Ubuntu client to connect before the login screen? Or do you
>>> just have that machine set to auto-login?
>>>
>>>
>> Yes it logs me in automatically.
>>
> Cool. If you have a minute, could you let me ( and others who will
> search for this) know exactly what you did? Thanks.

Edit:
In the interest of clarity/completeness and in case anyone finds this 
thread in the future and is as confused/frustrated as I was I've gone 
into detail as to how I got this to work - namely, getting clients to 
start and connect to the server without the use of a second keyboard to 
start Synergy on the clients.
Hope it helps.


After researching and finding the scripts mentioned earlier in the 
thread, the first thing they both suggest is to add synergys and 
synergyc to the Startup Applications for the server and client(s) 
respectively.
On the laptop I configured synergy to run at boot time through the GUI.

On the server (Cocobolo) the command is "synergys --config 
/etc/synergy.conf" (named Synergy Server Startup), after moving 
synergy.conf from ~/. to /etc obviously.

In the Ubuntu client (musicbox), it's simply "synergyc <Server IP Address>"
(w/o quotation marks)

As a side note, I found that if I include a comment in either of the 
startup apps preferences dialog, I end up with two items added to 
startup rather than one and don't understand why that is, but I've just 
left the Comments field blank.

I went round and round trying to get synergy to run and connect and 
found the conf file somewhat confusing. After many tries what I found 
that worked was to use IP addresses rather than machine names.

I have all these machines connected via a hardware firewall/router and a 
Linksys router:
ISP's router > SMC Barricade 7004 > WRT 54G (running Tomato firmware)
Thereis a  Windows XP laptop wired and wireless, Ubuntu 11.04 and 
another machine running Meerkat, both desktops, via ethernet.

My actual /etc/synergy.conf file:

sections:screens
	192.168.1.111:
  		Cocobolo
	192.168.1.119:
		musicbox
	192.2168.1.113:
  		wincrap
end

section:links
	192.168.1.111:
		right = 192.168.1.113
		left = 192.168.1.119

	192.168.1.119:
		left = 192.168.1.113
		right = 192.168.1.111

	192.168.1.113:
		right = 192.168.1.111
		left = 192.168.1.119
end
	
I had tried using all combination of machine names/IP addresses in the 
file but couldn't get it to work for some reason until I hit on the 
above configuration, which did the trick.

On the Windows laptop (which is XP sp3), I used the machine name for the 
server (the "Other Computer's Host Name" field) and IP address for the 
client screen name and the default Port # (in "options Advanced"). Also 
the "Use another computer's shared keyboard and mouse (client): radio 
button is ticked, as it is a client rather than the server.
Can't help at all with Apple machines.

I was mistaken earlier when I said Quicksynergy was running on the 
Windows machine - it's just Synergy with a GUI for configuration.
Sorry if that caused any confusion - it would have confused me.

I had thought that the next step would be to add (one of) the scripts as 
mentioned in the tutorials in order to get all the clients to run and 
connect when the machines are booted but for some reason it wasn't 
necessary. Not sure why but since it works, I'll leave well enough alone.
I've just now discovered that the Windows machine "just works" even when 
I quit Synergy on that machine. It was started at boot time but then, 
there was the log telling me that it had failed to connect, and I was 
using the shared keyboard/mouse at the time!?


It's been so long since Windows was my primary OS that I'm just able to 
get around in it any more and it's only used for a few proprietary 
programs. I hate having to fix anything - update>reboot>, add a 
program/driver> reboot, move the mouse>reboot, etc. it drives me a 
little crazy.

The Laptop is dual boot but since it's mainly used for the Win programs. 
I haven't gotten around to checking out if Ubuntu side will also run 
automagically, but I believe using IP addresses, I might be able to add:

		192.168.1.113:
			laptux

to section:screens and the links section - as it is now - would be 
sufficient, and have it work, or maybe it will only confuse things.

Maybe that's what "section:alias" would be for, I haven't really read up 
on that yet.
I just can't get into it right now, but when I get around to it, I'll 
post an update here unless someone wants to beat me to it (let us know 
your results). One way or the other should work... I think.