Barrier HID ( Synergy )

This is a fork of the open source core component of Synergy, a keyboard and mouse sharing tool. For compilation and configuration, check the main repo.

In certain cases - for example where installing the client on the system is not possible, this project helps to remediate that.

It does that by using raspberry pi as a proxy ( hid device ) that emulates usb keyboard and mouse ( and touch ).

Required hardware

Raspberry Pi Zero W connected to same network as Barrier server BUSTER Rpi OS ( Legacy )

Building the solution

You can build the solution by executing:

git clone https://github.com/karepiu/barrier_hid.git cd barrier_hid ./build.sh

or manually:

git clone https://github.com/karepiu/barrier_hid.git cd barrier_hid sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade sudo apt install git cmake make xorg-dev g++ libcurl4-openssl-dev
libavahi-compat-libdnssd-dev libssl-dev libx11-dev
libqt4-dev qtbase5-dev ./clean_build.sh

Hardware setup

Raspberry Pi Zero W needs to be setup as OTG device.

1. Connect RPiZw to the PC using OTG cable and port.
2. Set correct OTG mode
   • by executing script ./otg_mode_setup.sh
   • manually echo "dtoverlay=dwc2" | sudo tee -a /boot/config.txt echo "dwc2" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
3. Set RPiZw as HID device
   • by executing script ./hid_setup.sh

Usage

barrierc --client --name -f --hid /dev/hidg0 /dev/hidg1 /dev/hidg2 1920 1080

or

modify the client name and port in start.sh and execute - ./start.sh

start.sh starts barrierc in forground and uses nohup and & to run it in backround - reason for that is performance. The standrd deamon option in barrier does not work great on RPiZw.

• SSL works but for performance sake I suggest to disable it

Limitations/Issues

• No clipboard - as Pi Zero is proxy clipboard functionality would require supporting app or mass storage to make it work