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| 2 | <html> | 
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| 3 | <head> | 
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| 4 | <meta HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;CHARSET=iso-8859-1"> | 
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| 5 | <meta name="keywords" content="Virtual Screen, Open Source, Software" /> | 
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| 6 | <meta name="description" content="Mouse and Keyboard Sharing" /> | 
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| 7 | <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="synergy.css" media="screen" /> | 
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| 8 | <title>Synergy Network Security Guide</title> | 
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| 9 | </head> | 
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| 10 | <body class="main"> | 
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| 11 | <p> | 
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| 12 | </p><h3>Authentication and Encryption</h3><p> | 
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| 13 | Synergy does not do any authentication or encryption.  Any computer | 
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| 14 | can connect to the synergy server if it provides a screen name known | 
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| 15 | to the server, and all data is transferred between the server and the | 
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| 16 | clients unencrypted which means that anyone can, say, extract the | 
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| 17 | key presses used to type a password.  Therefore, synergy should not | 
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| 18 | be used on untrusted networks. | 
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| 19 | </p><p> | 
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| 20 | However, there are tools that can add authentication and encryption | 
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| 21 | to synergy without modifying either those tools or synergy.  One | 
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| 22 | such tool is SSH (which stands for secure shell).  A free implementation | 
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| 23 | of SSH is called <a target="_top" href="http://www.openssh.com/">OpenSSH</a> and runs | 
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| 24 | on Linux, many Unixes, and Windows (in combination with | 
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| 25 | <a target="_top" href="http://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a>). | 
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| 26 | </p><p> | 
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| 27 | </p><h3>Configuring the Server</h3><p> | 
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| 28 | Install the OpenSSH server on the same computer as the synergy server. | 
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| 29 | Configure the OpenSSH server as usual (synergy doesn't demand any | 
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| 30 | special options in OpenSSH) and start it.  Start the synergy server as | 
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| 31 | usual;  the synergy server requires no special options to work with | 
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| 32 | OpenSSH. | 
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| 33 | </p><p> | 
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| 34 | </p><h3>Configuring the Clients</h3><p> | 
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| 35 | Install the OpenSSH client on each synergy client computer.  Then, on | 
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| 36 | each client, start the OpenSSH client using port forwarding: | 
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| 37 | <pre> | 
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| 38 | ssh -f -N -L 24800:<span class="arg">server-hostname</span>:24800 <span class="arg">server-hostname</span> | 
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| 39 | </pre> | 
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| 40 | The <span class="arg">server-hostname</span> is the name or address | 
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| 41 | of the computer with the OpenSSH and synergy servers. | 
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| 42 | The 24800 is the default network port used by synergy;  if you use | 
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| 43 | a different port then replace both instances of 24800 with the port | 
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| 44 | number that you use.  Finally, start the synergy client normally | 
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| 45 | except use <span class="code">localhost</span> as the server host | 
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| 46 | name.  For example: | 
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| 47 | <pre> | 
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| 48 | synergyc -f localhost | 
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| 49 | </pre> | 
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| 50 | Synergy will then run normally except all communication is passed | 
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| 51 | through OpenSSH which decrypts/encrypts it on behalf of synergy. | 
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| 52 | </p> | 
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| 53 | </body> | 
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| 54 |  | 
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| 55 | </html> | 
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