Bluetooth Network Aggregation Point
This article covers the setup of a Bluetooth Network Aggregation Point (NAP) on Gentoo Linux.
What is a NAP
The Bluetooth specification incorporates the ability to create a Personal Area Network (PAN). It is an Ethernet transparent protocol, thus all standard protocols (especially IP) can be used in such a PAN. A NAP can be thought of being the Master in such a network. It will provide the connectivity to other networks (Internet for instance), for up to eight via Bluetooth connected PAN devices (cell phones, PDAs, laptops maybe). These devices will consume less power using Bluetooth instead of Wi-Fi.
Scope of this article
We will deal with the creation of a Gentoo NAP, in order to connect a Bluetooth enabled cell phone with the Internet. Then for instance, one could synchronize the cell phone's contacts/calendar with a SyncML capable groupware server, located anywhere on the Internet (or the local network). We will henceforth call the NAP server "Gentoo-Box" and the PAN client "cell phone".
Prerequisites
A Bluetooth installation must be done first. If you use simple-agent or bluetoothctl, no GUI programs or applets are needed. Set the "test-programs" USE flag on the net-wireless/bluez package, to get the latest bluez-test-nap script. We also need Network Bridging, but with our own host configuration.
Setting up a network bridge
As the BlueZ NAP server relies on Gentoo to handle the Ethernet link created by BlueZ, this section will create an Ethernet bridge using netifrc. Make sure to backup all files before editing them.
Consider the following scenario, as this is probably the easiest and most common case:
+−−−−−−−−−−+
Global IP address ┌─────>╎ Internet ╎
│ +−−−−−−−−−−+
│
v
┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Router │
│ (with DHCP and routing (NAT) capabilities) │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘
^ ^
│ │
┌────────────┐ ┌────────────┐ │ │ +−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−+
│ Cell phone │<─────>│ Gentoo-Box │<─────┘ └─────>╎ Local network ╎
└────────────┘ └────────────┘ +−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−+
Local IP address
Execute ip addr to locate the network card which connects to the router:
root #ip addr1: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:13:8f:a2:8e:76 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.0.2/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global eth0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe80::00:13:8f:a2:8e:76/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
The line "inet 192.168.0.2/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global eth0" is the one to look for.
Remember the device name (eth0) and edit /etc/conf.d/net:
/etc/conf.d/net...
# Comment out this line, and add the following lines:
#config_eth0="dhcp"
config_eth0="null"
bridge_br1="eth0"
config_br1="dhcp"
bridge_forward_delay_br1=100
bridge_stp_state_br1=1
...
This tells netifrc to not ask for a DHCP lease on eth0 (actually it tells netifrc to do nothing for eth0), and create a new bridge br1, which contains eth0. As eth0 used to get its IP address via DHCP, br1 is set to do exactly that. The options "bridge_stp_state_br1=1" and "bridge_forward_delay_br1=100" make sure, the Spanning Tree Protocol is used, and the forwarding state of the bridge will be reached within one second of a topology change. The last options speed up the cell phone connection considerably, as Gentoo tends to default to around 10 seconds, thus every cell phone connect would take at least that long.
Create a new symbolic link, and restart the network:
root #ln -sr /etc/init.d/net.lo /etc/init.d/net.br1
root #rc-service net.eth0 stop && rc-service net.br1 start... * Bringing up interface br1 * Creating bridge br1 ... * Adding ports to br1 * eth0 ... [ ok ] * 192.168.0.2 ... [ ok ]
Verify the connection to the Internet and, if everything works well, add br1 to the "default" runlevel:
root #ping -c1 wiki.gentoo.org
root #rc-update add net.br1 default
Connecting a cell phone to the Internet
Start the NAP service and notice interface br1. Enter in a terminal:
root #bluez-test-nap br1Watch Syslog when you tell your cell phone to connect to the Internet using the Gentoo-Box as NAP:
root #tail -F /var/log/messagesNov 04 17:37:38 [bluetoothd] bnep: bridge br1: interface bnep0 added Nov 04 17:37:38 [kernel] br1: port 2(bnep0) entered blocking state Nov 04 17:37:38 [kernel] br1: port 2(bnep0) entered disabled state Nov 04 17:37:38 [kernel] device bnep0 entered promiscuous mode Nov 04 17:37:38 [kernel] br1: port 2(bnep0) entered blocking state Nov 04 17:37:38 [kernel] br1: port 2(bnep0) entered listening state Nov 04 17:37:40 [kernel] br1: port 2(bnep0) entered learning state Nov 04 17:37:42 [kernel] br1: port 2(bnep0) entered forwarding state Nov 04 17:37:42 [kernel] br1: topology change detected, propagating
You should now be able to connect and load webpages.
Background service
The NAP service can be started in four more ways:
- To run the script in the background, and stop it (CTRL-C = KeyboardInterrupt = SIGINT):
root #bluez-test-nap br1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
root #killall -SIGINT bluez-test-nap
- To run at startup, let /etc/init.d/local read next scripts. These files must be made executable:
/etc/local.d/bluez-test-nap.startexec /usr/bin/bluez-test-nap br1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
/etc/local.d/bluez-test-nap.stopkillall -SIGINT bluez-test-nap
root #chmod +x /etc/local.d/bluez-test-nap.start /etc/local.d/bluez-test-nap.stop- Instead of the local.d files approach, it's better to use a real init script. This file must be made executable:
/etc/init.d/nap#!/sbin/openrc-run
# Copyright 1999-2019 Gentoo Authors
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
command="/usr/bin/bluez-test-nap"
command_args="br1"
command_background="yes"
description="Bluetooth NAP"
pidfile="/var/run/nap.pid"
retry="-INT/4/-TERM/1/-KILL/1"
depend() {
use net.br1
need bluetooth
}
root #chmod +x /etc/init.d/nap- In case of plugging and unplugging an USB dongle, just an udev rule can do the job:
/etc/udev/rules.d/90-bluetooth.rulesACTION=="add", KERNEL=="hci0", \
RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'sleep 0.5; exec /usr/bin/bluez-test-nap br1 >/dev/null 2>&1 &'"
ACTION=="remove", KERNEL=="hci0", \
RUN+="/usr/bin/killall -SIGINT bluez-test-nap"
# In case of trouble (ugly):
#ACTION=="remove", KERNEL=="hci0", \
# RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'killall -INT bluez-test-nap; killall -KILL bluetoothd; rc-service bluetooth restart'"
Or:
/etc/udev/rules.d/90-bluetooth.rulesACTION=="add", KERNEL=="hci0", \
RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'sleep 0.5; rc-service nap start'"
ACTION=="remove", KERNEL=="hci0", \
RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'rc-service nap stop'"
Troubleshooting
No webpages can be loaded
If the phone does not show any sign of being connected, try Wireshark to figure out what packets are being sent and received. Maybe a simple
root #echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forwardcan do the trick. Make sure no firewall settings on the Gentoo-Box interfere.
Restore your old Internet connection
If you lose your Internet connectivity, if things break, restore your backup of /etc/conf.d/net and restart networking:
/etc/conf.d/net(old file)
root #rc-service net.eth0 restartTools for testing
There is a bluez-test-network utility, that you can use for testing PAN connection initiated from server side, and a monitor-bluetooth utility to watch what is going behind the D-Bus scene, because watching /var/log/messages can be not enough.
See also
- Bluetooth — describes the configuration and usage of Bluetooth controllers and devices.