Synergy (software)
Software for sharing a keyboard and mouse across multiple computers.
Synergy is a program that lets you control multiple computers with a single keyboard and mouse. It’s designed for setups where each computer has its own monitor, but you want to operate them all from one desk—like a KVM switch, but without sharing video. The software is a mix of open-source and proprietary code; the open-source parts are licensed under the GNU General Public License, making them free software.
- First version date
- May 13, 2001
- Creator
- Chris Schoeneman
- Initial platform
- X Window System only
- Current supported platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems
- Default port
- 24800
- Version 2.0 year
- 2017
- Security improvement version
- 1.7
Lore & Background
The first incarnation of Synergy was CosmoSynergy, created by Richard Lee and Adam Feder then at Cosmo Software, Inc., a subsidiary of SGI (née Silicon Graphics, Inc.), at the end of 1996. They wrote it, and Chris Schoeneman contributed, to solve a problem: most of the engineers in Cosmo Software had both an Irix and a Windows box on their desks, and switchboxes were expensive and annoying. CosmoSynergy was a great success, but Cosmo Software declined to productize it, and the company was later closed. Synergy is a from-scratch reimplementation of CosmoSynergy, providing most of the features of the original and adding a few improvements. Synergy+ was created in 2009 as a maintenance fork for the purpose of fixing bugs inherited from the original version. The original version of Synergy had not been updated for a notable length of time (as of 6 June 2010, the latest release was 2 April 2006). There was never official confirmation that the original Synergy project had been abandoned; however, there was public discussion providing speculation. In said discussion, Chris Schoeneman (the creator of Synergy) stated that instead of supporting a 1.3.x team, he intends on releasing version 2.0 of Synergy, and publicly announced on 27 Aug 2008 that he has been making progress on this version. Once the program is installed, users can move the mouse 'off' the side of their desktop on one computer, and the mouse pointer will appear on the desktop of another computer. Key presses will be delivered to whichever computer the mouse-pointer is located in. The clipboard and even screensavers can be synchronized. The program is implemented as a server which defines which screen-edges lead to which machines, and one or more clients, which connect to the server to offer the use of their desktops. The keyboard and mouse are connected to the server machine.
Reader's Guide
Synergy's significance lies in its practical solution to a common multi-computer workspace problem, eliminating the need for multiple keyboards and mice or expensive KVM switches. Its history shows a lineage from CosmoSynergy, an internal tool at Cosmo Software, which was never productized, leading to Synergy as a reimplementation. The project's partly open-source nature under the GNU General Public License allowed forks like Synergy+ to maintain the code when the original project stalled. Security concerns were notable: in July 2013, the Defuse Security Group reported the proprietary encryption used in Synergy 1.6 to be insecure and released an exploit for passive decryption. This was solved by using SSL in version 1.7, and as of version 2.0 (2017), keystrokes, mouse movements, and clipboard contents are sent via an encrypted SSL network connection, which previously required the purchase of the Pro edition in version 1. The software's legacy includes user-maintained forks such as Barrier (no maintenance since February 2022) and input-leap, which continue to support the functionality.
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