Start synergy on boot?

For newer version of Ubuntu that use lightdm.

I have successfully done the following for running the synergy client for the login screen, and after I login. It is much simpler than the other answers, IMHO.

edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf as root.

sudo vi /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

add the following line to the bottom of the file.

greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/synergyc <ip/host>

restart lightdm. (it is better to do this from a terminal or ssh session)

sudo /etc/init.d/lightdm restart

Option 1: start synergy before login

The main article is on Synergy's sourceforge site: Starting synergy automatically

Here is a lead-in to the article... there is too much detail to put it all here:

Synergy requires an X server. That means a server must be running and synergy must be authorized to connect to that server. It's best to have the display manager start synergy. You'll need the necessary (probably root) permission to modify the display manager configuration files. If you don't have that permission you can start synergy after logging in via the .xsession file.

Option 2: start synergy after login

To start Synergy once you have logged into your X-session.

Main Menu - System - Preferences - Startup Applications   
[ Add ]  
  Name:     synergys
  Command:  synergys --config ~/.synergy.conf
  Comment:  synergys  

If you have problems with the ~/, try $HOME/
or as a last resort use /home/your_username/

I just checked my notes... When I connected from Windows to a Linux box , my command was:
/usr/bin/synergyc 192.168.1.16
... maybe the full path is needed.

You are running Synergy as a server, I was running it as a client.. but that shouldn't effect the auto startup.


For Ubuntu 14.04 (and possibly others, I think 14.04 is the first build that lightdm was changed to this format, but this will work on any build that uses this setup) its simple you just need to edit 50-ubuntu.conf to get Synergy prior to lightdm:

sudo nano /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-ubuntu.conf

For Client add this line:

greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/synergyc <OPTIONS> <SERVER HOSTNAME>

For Server add this line:

greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/synergys -c <CONFIG FILE>

Save files after edit and reboot (I know you can restart service rather than reboot but I perfer to reboot).

For Server or Client just insert the command that you would enter in terminal to get it to launch with the appropriate options ect...

So say I normally execute the command below in terminal on my client machine to run Synergy.

synergyc -n XBMC 192.168.1.99

All I need to do to run Synergy pre lightdm is add the line below to 50-ubuntu.conf

greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/synergyc -n XBMC 192.168.1.99

Hope this helps, because the Synergy docs are a bit out of date. Enjoy!

Reference