LOCK ALL THE COMPUTERS
2025-07-23
I wanted a way to simultaneously lock all of the computers - a mixture of
Linux, MacOS and Windows boxen - on my desk, when I'm going to step away.
Here's what I came up with:
There's optional audio in this video, if you want it.
One button. And everything locks. Nice!
Here's how it works:
* The mini keyboard is just 10 cheap mechanical keys wired up to a CH552 chip.
It's configured to send CTRL+ALT+F13 through CTRL+ALT+F22 (F13 through F24 are
absolutely valid "standard" key assignments, of course: it's just that the
vast majority of keyboards don't have keys for them! This makes them excellent
candidates for non-clashing personal-use function keys, but I like to append
one or more modifier keys to the as well to be absolutely certain that I don't
interact with things I didn't intend to!) when one of its keys are pressed.
* The "lock" key is captured by my KVM tool Deskflow (which I migrated to when
Barrier became neglected, which in turn I migrated to when I fell out of love
with Synergy). It then relays this hotkey across to all currently-connected
machines (Some of the other buttons on my mini keyboard are mapped to
"jumping" my cursor to particular computers (if I lose it, which happens more
often than I'd like to admit), and "locking" my cursor to the system it's on.).
* That shortcut is captured by each recipient machine in different ways:
The Linux computers run LXDE, so I added a line to /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml to
set a <keybind> that executes xscreensaver-command -lock.
For the Macs, I created a Quick Action in Automator that runs pmset
displaysleepnow as a shell script (These boxes are configured to lock as soon
as the screen blanks; if yours don't then you might need a more-sophisticated
script.), and then connected that via Keyboard Shortcuts > Services.
On the Windows box, I've got AutoHotKey running anyway, so I just have it
run { DllCall("LockWorkStation") } when it hears the keypress.
That's all there is to is! A magic "lock all my computers, I'm stepping away"
button, that's much faster and more-convenient than locking two to five
computers individually.
LINKS
HTML All
HTML Deskflow
HTML Barrier
HTML I fell out of love with Synergy
HTML AutoHotKey