I finally got a new mobile phone - one that not only supports rfcomm (”serial port” via bluetooth) but also the “PAN Network Access Point” profile - which allows a computer to connect to the internet easily, without many extra layers like PPP etc.
It’s actually quite easy to use. (Note: I’m doing all that on recent openSUSE Factory, but I am pretty sure that it would work just as good on plain 11.1)
It is very handy to have the bluez-test package installed, many of the tools I am using are in that package.
First, we need to create a connection to the phone, exchange PIN numbers etc. I use bluetooth-applet from the gnome-bluetooth package (or the one from bluez-gnome) for that, it’s just the best maintained tool for the task, even if you are a KDE guy like I am, I’d highly recommend it.
Now we need to find out the phones Bluetooth-Address (bdaddr):
seife@stoetzler:~> test-discovery
[ 00:24:EF:xx:xx:xx ]
Name = seife C510
Paired = 1
LegacyPairing = 1
Alias = seife C510
Address = 00:24:EF:xx:xx:xx
RSSI = -54
Class = 0x5a0204
Icon = phone
The hex number after “Address” is the bdaddr of your device.
Now we can create a network device:
seife@stoetzler:~> test-network 00:24:EF:xx:xx:xx nap Connected /org/bluez/16833/hci0/dev_00_24_EF_XX_XX_XX to 00:24:EF:xx:xx:xx Press CTRL-C to disconnect
Now you should have a bnep0 network interface and can (as root) either run dhcpcd directly on it, or create a config file “ifcfg-bnep0″ in /etc/sysconfig/network like this:
BOOTPROTO='dhcp' NAME='pand network device' STARTMODE='auto' USERCONTROL='no'
and then call “ifup-dhcp bnep0″.
Two things to consider:
First, if your system is using NetworkManager, you don’t get DNS addresses into resolv.conv. See this post for details. I now have
NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY="STATIC_FALLBACK ppp0 bnep0 NetworkManager"
in my /etc/sysconfig/network/config
Second, test-network will terminate the connection after 1000 seconds (it is only a test tool), but it is easy to fix, just copy it to ~/bin/my-test-network (or whatever name you like) and apply the following trivial diff:
--- /usr/bin/test-network
+++ ~/bin/my-test-network
@@ -35,9 +35,10 @@
print "Press CTRL-C to disconnect"
try:
- time.sleep(1000)
- print "Terminating connection"
+ while 1:
+ time.sleep(1000)
except:
pass
+print "Terminating connection"
network.Disconnect()
I’m not a python wizard, so I’m pretty sure you can do better, but it works well for me.
Thank you, NICE. Interesting to read, even though my phone does not support it.
“Old method” using rfcomm via some scripts still work, but I would prefer the PAN approach.
I have to check my wifes new phone.
Hi, sadfully this approach doesn’t seem to work with 11.1.
bluez-test there misses test-network and even installing an uptodate bluez package doesn’t work but brings a connection refused error.
In case anyone is interested in the “old method” and likes to improve my initial script
(still with many debug output):
———————————————————————–
#!/bin/bash
# config section
# configure your BLUEZ ID
BLUEZID=”00:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX”
# after suspend/resume cycle bluetooth might be off
echo enable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth
# short sleep to make sure bluethooth is ready
sleep 1
# Channel for dial up network via bluetooth might change
# (experienced with Nokia E71 after turning bluetooth off/on)
# re-set channel each time
# release all rfcoom devices
rfcomm release all
# get current active dialup network channel
RFCHANNEL=`sdptool browse $BLUEZID | \
grep -A4 “Dialup Networking” | \
awk ‘$1 == “Channel:” {print $2}’`
# print out channel for debugging reasons
echo Channel is: $RFCHANNEL
# bind rfcomm0 to channel and device (bind all not always successful)
rfcomm bind rfcomm0 $BLUEZID $RFCHANNEL
# DEBUGGING check if rfcomm0 has been setup correctly
rfcomm
# Finally dial in
wvdial umts
———————————————————————–
Harald, your script looks familiar to me. Over the years I’ve been contributing many bits and pieces to my script. It is at
https://api.opensuse.org/public/source/home:jnweiger/jw-settings/bluetooth-internet.sh
Seife, this is what test-network does to me on my 11.2 box:
test-network 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx nap
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/test-network”, line 31, in
iface = network.Connect(service)
File “/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/dbus/proxies.py”, line 68, in __call__
return self._proxy_method(*args, **keywords)
File “/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/dbus/proxies.py”, line 140, in __call__
**keywords)
File “/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/dbus/connection.py”, line 622, in call_blocking
message, timeout)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method “Connect” with signature “s” on interface “org.bluez.Network” doesn’t exist
[...] wrote last year about how to use bluetooth networking to connect to the internet via a mobile phone. Since then, I had heard rumours that NetworkManager was now able to do this as well, but I [...]