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Quick Synergy Setup Guide

I am a huge fan of Synergy software that allows you to share a mouse and keyboard (and cut & paste buffers) between two or more computers, which is very useful for driving both a PC and a Mac at the same time, or two Macs, or Linux and a PC, or Irix and a Mac.

Setting it up on two Macs is easier than ever now because of MacPorts, which is software for managing open source software packages on a Mac. You’ll need Xcode installed to get MacPorts working.

If you have not already done so, install XCode first on both Macs that will be using Synergy. Then, install MacPorts on both Macs as well. Use MacPorts to install the Synergy packages on both Macs.
sudo port install synergy

Pick one host to be the server, in Synergy’s case, the server is the host that has the keyboard and mouse you want to use on both computers, and it must (if you want to run synergy over ssh for security) must also have an ssh daemon running that you can log into remotely. On a Mac, you need to use System Preferences, Sharing panel to enable remote login. That will enable sshd connections.

On both Macs, copy the example Synergy Config file and edit it…
cp /Applications/synergy-1.3.1/examples/synergy.conf ~/.synergy.conf
sudo vi ~/.synergy.conf

Example synergy.conf file:
section: screens
bart:
lisa:
end
section: links
bart:
left = lisa
lisa:
right = bart
end
section: aliases
bart:
bart.local
lisa:
lisa.local
end

Get your server host’s IP address
ifconfig en0 | grep "inet " | awk '{print $2}'

Start Synergy Server on the server host that already accepts SSH connections:
synergys -f -c ~/.synergy.conf

Start the SSH tunnel on the client host:
ssh -f -N -L 24800:IP_ADDRESS_OF_SERVER:24800 IP_ADDRESS_OF_SERVER

Start the Synergy Client using SSH through localhost port:
synergyc -f localhost