[[!meta title="Bluetooth tethering via PAN with Windows Mobile and Ubuntu"]] [[!meta date="2010-11-08"]] [[!meta author="rohieb"]] [[!meta license="CC-BY-SA 3.0"]] [[!img defaults size=x200]] I was on the train today, needed some of the [Boost][0] manuals, and had no internet connection. So I wanted to use my phone (an old HTC Prophet with Windows Mobile 6.1) as a network access point to browse over GPRS/EDGE. As I found out, it is fairly simple with [Blueman][1] and it even provides [NetworkManager][2] integration, so all NetworkManager-capable applications can be notified about the connectivity. Windows Mobile 6.1 allows tethering over a Bluetooth PAN ([Personal Area Network][3]); but there is another method called DUN ([Dial Up Networking][4]), which I will not describe here. So here is a step-by-step tutorial what I did for my PAN approach, with a few (german) screenshots, tested on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid: * Since my laptop was running on Ubuntu Lucid, there was already a recent Blueman version in the Ubuntu repos available. On older systems, you may want to add the [Blueman Launchpad PPA][5]. $ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:blueman/ppa # only necessary on pre-lucid systems $ sudo aptitude update $ sudo aptitude install blueman * Note that this also removes possibly installed `gnome-bluetooth` packages since Blueman is an adequate replacement for the GNOME Bluetooth UI. * After the installation has finished, I had to enable the NMPANSupport plugin for NetworkManager 0.8 by right-clicking on the Blueman icon in the GNOME notification area and selecting “Plugins”. For older NetworkManager versions, there is also a plugin for NetworkManager 0.7, called NMIntegration. * Then I activated tethering on my phone (“Programs” → “Internet Sharing” on my Windows Mobile 6.1, but YMMV). Apparently this was neccesary with my model, because without tethering enabled I could not get a Bluetooth PAN connection in the next step. * I paired the phone and my laptop via Bluetooth, and created a PAN (Personal Area Network) by connecting to the “Network Access Point” service on the phone. In Blueman, all you have to do after pairing is right-click on the device and select “Connect To: Network Access Point”. This creates a new network device `bnep0` which is automagically configured through NetworkManager (using [stateless address autoconfiguration][6]). (Yes, my phone is called [Leia][7]… I also have a yet another HTC Prophet for testing purposes, which is called [Luke][8] :-) ) * However, in my setup, though I was able to ping certain IP adresses on the internet, DNS lookups timed out for some reason. It got better when I explicitly set an IP address for the Bluetooth PAN driver on my phone, and did the tethering process all over again. * And off I went with mobile internet access. Woo-hoo! \o/ I may also add that the NetUsage plugin in Blueman is very reasonable to use ;-) After activated, the network usage can be viewed by right-clicking on the Blueman icon and selecting “Network Usage”. [0]: http://www.boost.org/ [1]: https://launchpad.net/blueman [2]: http://projects.gnome.org/NetworkManager/ [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_area_network [4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile#Dial-up_Networking_Profile_.28DUN.29 [5]: https://launchpad.net/~blueman/+archive/ppa [6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-local%20address [7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leia_Skywalker [8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Skywalker [[!tag Blueman bluetooth mobile_internet_access network NetworkManager Ubuntu Ubuntu_Lucid Windows_Mobile]]