Bluetooth PPP connection on Linux

If you need to establish a PPP connection from a device to your Linux box, then do the following:

  1. Make sure your Linux installation is set up to support Bluetooth connectivity
  • Bluetooth is enabled and compiled into the kernel
  • The kernel drivers for your Bluetooth dongle are also compiled and installed
  • Bluetooth user-space applications are installed (specifically here we need dund - the BlueZ Bluetooth dial-up networking daemon)
  1. Create a file (any name you like) in the directory /etc/ppp/peers/ and paste into it the following:
noauth	# we require no authentication
local # local connection
asyncmap 0	# charmap
idle 1000	# disconnection after 1000 idle seconds
noipx		# disable novell ipx
passive		# the client (palm) initiates the connection
silent		# no info needed
172.0.0.1:172.0.0.2 # Server:client ip address
ms-dns 172.0.0.1

The IP addresses can be changed to whatever you wish.

  1. To activate the server, run as root:
dund -s call (name of file you created above)

That's all there is to it! Now you can discover your Bluetooth-enabled Linux box with another device and connect to the server.

This is precisely the configuration I use to connect my Palm Pilot to my laptop via Bluetooth. On my Palm I create a new connection that connects to the PC (not the network - we have created a PPP link, not a LAN link) via Bluetooth. No username/password are necessary. You could, for example, install pssh and control your Linux box via your Palm Pilot when it is not accessible by any other means.

If you need to via the status of PPP links on your server, you can use pppstatus.