Mouse and keyboard sharing

Share mouse and keyboard

Many users of Linux have several devices in use - different purposes.

Havíng a laptop and workstation in use at the same time requires you to move your attention from one keyboard to another - from one screen to another.

What if it was possible to use your workstations mouse and keyboard to operate your laptop?

Synergy

Such solution exist - Synergy. Unfortunately this is partly a commercial solution but based on Open Source code so the Github user debauchee has forked the code and created a rebranded fully Open Source solution which can be installed from AUR.

Barrier

What is it?

Barrier is KVM software forked from Symless's synergy 1.9 codebase. Synergy was >a commercialized reimplementation of the original CosmoSynergy written by Chris Schoeneman.

What's different?

Whereas synergy has moved beyond its goals from the 1.x era, Barrier aims to >maintain that simplicity. Barrier will let you use your keyboard and mouse from >machine A to control machine B (or more). It's that simple.

Installation

Install the package from AUR on both systems with Pamac using either the GUI or the CLI

pamac build barrier

Naming terms

  • The server is the system offering mouse and keyboard service
  • The client is the computer to be controlled by the server

Configure the server

Launch the barrier app from your environments menu system.

  1. Select the Server checkbox
  2. Click the button Configure Server...
  3. In the center of the grid you see your server computer by name.
  4. Drag the monitor from the upper left corner and place in a logical position in relation to your server. E.g. if your client is located on left side of your server placed it the left in grid.
  5. Double click the newly placed client, name it and click OK.
  6. Make a note of the SSL Fingerprint show in the Server box. You will need it when connecting the *client for the first time.
  7. Click Apply and Start to start the server

Note: you can setup several clients if you have more than one you want to control. Only requirement is a monitor attached to client.

Save the server configuration to a file using the Barrier menu or press CtrlAlts, name the file .barrier.conf.

Run barrier server at login

If you want to run the barrier server at login you need to create a script and add this to your environments autostart.

Use your preferred method of editing text files to create a script named barrier.sh and make it executable.

touch ~/barrier.sh
chmod +x ~/barrier.sh
nano ~/barrier.sh

Add the following content to the file

SERVERNAME=$(hostname)
CONFIG=/home/$USER/.barrier.conf
barriers --no-tray \
         --debug INFO \
         --name $SERVERNAME \
         --enable-crypto \
         -c $CONFIG \
         --address :24800

If your environment uses a autostart file e.g. Openbox add the barrier.sh script to your autostart file

nano ~/.config/openbox/autostart
sleep 1; ~/barrier.sh

Configure the client

The first connection from your client has to be done manually as the server 's SSL fingerprint will have to be manually acknowledged before use.

Run barrier client

Like we did on the server, we will create a script to launch the client at login. Replace serverip with the IP of your server. Do not remove the brackets, they are part of the argument.

touch ~/barrier.sh
chmod +x ~/barrier.sh
nano ~/barrier.sh
CLIENTNAME=$(hostname)
barrierc --no-tray \
         --debug INFO \
         --name $CLIENTNAME \
         --enable-crypto \
         [serverip]:24800

As with the server add the script to your environment's autostart. If the environment is Openbox add the barrier.sh script the clients autostart file

nano ~/.config/openbox/autostart
sleep 1; ~/barrier.sh

Setup the client's display manager to auto login. If you are using lightdm then install the package lightdm-settings and configure auto login and restart the client.

Log off the server and re-login.