--- /dev/null
+[[!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.
+
+ <div class="gallery">
+ [[!img blueman-menu.png alt="Blueman context menu"]]
+ [[!img blueman-plugins.png alt="Blueman plugin page"]]
+ </div>
+
+* 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.
+
+ <div class="gallery">
+ [[!img winmo-program-menu.png alt="Windows Mobile Program screen"]]
+ [[!img winmo-connection-sharing.png alt="Windows Mobile Internet
+ Sharing application"]]
+ </div >
+
+* 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]).
+
+ <div class="gallery">
+ [[!img blueman-pan.png size=x100 alt="Blueman: Context menu for device
+ “Leia”, menu entry “Network Access Point” is selected"]]
+ </div>
+
+ (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.
+
+ <div class="gallery">
+ [[!img winmo-connections.png alt="Windows Mobile System Settings
+ Screen, with item “Wi-Fi” selected"]]
+ [[!img winmo-networkdrivers.png alt="Windows Mobile Network Driver
+ settings screen, with menu item “Bluetooth PAN Driver” selected"]]
+ [[!img winmo-bluetooth-ip.png alt="Windows Mobile Bluetooth PAN Driver
+ settings screen"]]
+ </div>
+
+* 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]]
projects / www-rohieb-name.git / blobdiff