From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 12 17:46:01 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1C33106566B for ; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:46:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gull@gull.us) Received: from mail-ew0-f54.google.com (mail-ew0-f54.google.com [209.85.215.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5822E8FC14 for ; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:46:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy1 with SMTP id 1so2188558ewy.13 for ; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:46:00 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.204.152.24 with SMTP id e24mr956339bkw.324.1315849560028; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:46:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.204.67.14 with HTTP; Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:45:59 -0700 (PDT) X-Originating-IP: [128.95.17.221] In-Reply-To: <20110912014355.19f3efa6.freebsd@edvax.de> References: <20076.56940.849206.283586@jerusalem.litteratus.org> <20110912014355.19f3efa6.freebsd@edvax.de> Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:45:59 -0700 Message-ID: From: David Brodbeck To: FreeBSD Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: Re: KVM switch with FreeBSD-8.2 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:46:01 -0000 On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Polytropon wrote: > On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:10:48 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: >> On Sun, 11 Sep 2011, Daniel Feenberg wrote: >> >> > If you are asking, "Is there a FreeBSD command to cause the KVM switch to >> > move to the next system?" then the answer is "I don't know and it would amaze >> > me if there were." >> >> There's often a key sequence to advance to the next port or a specific >> port. > > That can _sometimes_ be a problem when the KVM switch > doesn't properly detect this sequence - or maybe the > user has already defined that sequence for some action > in X, so X "catches" the sequence and acts properly. X "catching" the sequence won't stop the switch from reacting to it -- it's done in hardware in the switch. But of course X may do something undesirable if the switch passes the key combination through. The two most common ones are Ctrl, Alt, Shift (rapidly in sequence) followed by a port number, or Ctrl twice. The latter can be a little too easy to trigger accidentally. The USB switches generally emulate a generic USB keyboard and mouse, so drivers aren't a problem. Sometimes they work by simulating a USB disconnect from the machine they're switching to, though, so you need good keyboard and mouse hotplug support in the OS. Generally these switches don't react well to having anything but a keyboard in the keyboard port and a mouse in the mouse port. If you have a hub built into your keyboard the hub will be useless when you're using one of these switches.