Synergy in Ubuntu not recognizing computer name change

Question

I've changed my computer name in these places:

/etc/hostname
/etc/hosts

But when I try and connect Synergy with the new name, in the log it's still attempting to connect with the old name. I can also only access the computer from other computers (it's running lamp) with it's old hostname and not the new one.

What am I missing? I've done a full reboot.

Solution 1

I did the following which fixed it.

sudo apt-get remove --purge synergy

or

sudo dpkg -r synergy

then

sudo rm ~/.config/Synergy (the synergy.conf file in this folder was causing the host name issue so I deleted the whole folder and started over)

then

sudo dpkg -i synergy-1.4.12-Linux-i686.deb

Solution 2

Try looking out for your user's synergy.conf in /home/yourusername/.config/synergy/ and editing it to suit your new hostname's SCREEN-NAME... mine kept itself unmodified even between uninstalls.... check in/with:

gedit ~/.config/synergy/synergy.conf

BTW: That hostname vs screenname naming thing is not consistent enough in the GUIs, (Quicksynergy gave me a hint thou) which can get very confusing.

Solution 3

Try connecting to the Synergy Server with this commandline in Ubuntu:

synergyc -f --name <my-new-hostname> <servername>

---

If you do not run your own internal DNS server then you will need to specify the new hostname for your Ubuntu box on each computer in the network (usually the hosts file).

Flush the arp and dns cache and modify the hosts file on the SERVER to include an entry for the CLIENT machine and try again.

Comments

[Paul]

How have you got it configured in synergy?

[Anonymous]

My Ubuntu machine is a Synergy client (not server), I can't see anywhere I would set the computer name in the client settings. On my Synergy server if I set it to expect the new name, it will not connect. Set it to the old name and it connects straight away.

[Fran]

As user root, try this: find /etc -type f -exec grep OLDHOSTNAME {} /dev/null \; (and, yes, there's a backslash before that semi-colon in the find command). This should show you any files under /etc that still contain the old hostname.

[Anonymous]

Hi Fran, it didn't find anything with my old hostname.

[harrymc]

QuickSynergy on Mac/Linux or NQuickSynergy on Windows supposedly takes all the pain out of using Synergy.

[Darael]

If you've not rebooted since making the changes, you'll also need to "sudo hostname <newhostname>", as well as making the changes to the files you mentioned. Could it be that?

[Bruno9779]

I think you shouldn't have changed your hostname manually. Try with the command hostname instead: unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?hostname

[Adrian Ratnapala]

How come you have HTML tags in your hosts file?

[Anonymous]

Tried completely removing and reinstalling synergy. uname -n shows my new computer name. /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts are not being automatically restored. Thanks anyway.

[Shou Ya]

@Anonymous It's really strange. I'm sorry that I don't have further idea about that.

[Anonymous]

Hi there, as I've said in my question (and in response to some answers) I've already tried this without any luck. Thanks.

[Kelvin Maurits]

well it can be done sucsessfully in my pc... let me do some reserch first... i'll ask my friend if they know somthing that i don't know...

[Jeremy W]

Did you attempt to flush the arp and dns cache and add an entry in the hosts file on the SERVER for the CLIENT machine?

[ohaleck]

In my case Synergy is written with capital letters, making the path: ~/.config/Synergy/Synergy.conf