What are people doing for input devices (keyboard/mouse) when running multiple VMs with passthrough'd video cards?

 

Is it possible to share one keyboard and mouse between 2 VMs? Would it work the same way as sharing a video card? (Only one vm can be running at a time), or is there a work around?

 

[EDIT] More background: My plan/hope is to have both VMs outputting to the same monitor on different inputs, and switch between the VMs by simply switching the active input on the monitor.

http://synergy-project.org/

http://synergy-project.org/

 

Thanks for the quick response .

 

I was just reading about that before coming back to check on my post! Have you used it in this situation?

 

Has anyone else used this or have experience with this?

 

Any other thoughts, or is this the defacto solution?

 

Thanks!

It works great for me, but I'm using two monitors, not one, which I think is the normal use case for it. It auto-switches to the other VM when you get to the edge of the screen.

 

For using it on one monitor only, I think it would work out OK. The Scroll lock button will force the mouse pointer to stay on one computer at a time.

 

This doesn't work that well for games though, so if that's what you're going for, make sure to run the synergy server on that VM that is running your games, not the one running the client.

 

Another idea is to use an actual KVM switch. Or a physical USB switching device (and passthrough entire USB controller)

Another idea is to use an actual KVM switch. Or a physical USB switching device (and passthrough entire USB controller)

 

Yes I agree. If i had only one display i would use a kvm switch, that way one keyboard can be shared by 2 vms and switched between the two. Also it would allow you to switch the display aswell.

On 3/3/2016 at 3:08 PM, EnigmaCurry said:

http://synergy-project.org/

I tried synergy. Synergy did not work on boot with OSX. I can not login without an attached keyboard which makes it useless.