Installing Bluez¶
Warning
This page is not included in Bluezero documentation any more because the versions in most Linux distributions and new enough that this isn’t required. It has been left here in the source tree as a general reference should someone doing development want to move to a newer version that in their Linux distribution.
Overview¶
Bluezero relies on the dbus interface of BlueZ. This library requires the features provided by BlueZ version 5.43 and later. If the Linux OS you have installed does not have the correct version then these instructions are intended to jump start the switching to a newer version of BlueZ which will need to be built from source.
Required Packages¶
The following packages are a super set of what is required. For some systems these may already be install or not required:
sudo apt-get install bluetooth
sudo apt-get install bluez-tools
# Not required if building from source
# sudo apt-get install bluez-test-scripts
# sudo apt-get install bluez-hcidump
# sudo apt-get install python-bluez
To compile a new version of BlueZ (requires deb-src entries in /etc/apt/sources.list):
sudo apt-get build-dep bluez
If you are looking to contribute to the development of Bluezero then you will need:
sudo apt-get install rsync
sudo apt-get install python-dbus
sudo apt-get install python3-dbus
sudo apt-get install python-dbusmock
# Do I need the following?
sudo apt-get install python3-dbusmock
There are also some pip installs required for development:
# For doing Sphinx documentation
sudo pip3 install Sphinx
sudo pip3 install sphinx_rtd_theme
# To check code against PEP 8 style conventions
sudo pip3 install pycodestyle
Getting newer versions of BlueZ source¶
Download the User Space BlueZ Package from http://www.bluez.org/download/
wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/bluetooth/bluez-5.43.tar.xz
tar xf bluez-5.43.tar.xz
cd bluez-5.43
How to config and compile BlueZ 5.43 and later¶
To configure run:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--mandir=/usr/share/man \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--localstatedir=/var \
--enable-experimental \
--enable-maintainer-mode
Note
On the Raspberry Pi 3 installing the latest version of BlueZ breaks the connection to the controller. See Bluezero GitHub repository issue 30 on how to patch BlueZ to use with a Raspberry Pi 3
To compile and install run:
make -j 4 && sudo make install
Automatically run bluetoothd with experimental mode¶
Some of the BlueZ DBus API functionality is still behind an experimental flag. This can be switch on by default in the bluetooth.service file
Edit bluetooth.service file to add –experimental flag e.g:
sudo sed -i '/^ExecStart.*bluetoothd\s*$/ s/$/ --experimental/' /lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service
Restart bluetoothd with new version¶
You will need to either, reboot or run:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo service bluetooth restart
The bluetoothd should now be the new version. To check the bluetoothd is running:
service bluetooth status
To check the version use bluetoothctl and type version:
$ bluetoothctl
[bluetooth]# version
Version 5.43
Switch controller to Bluetooth Low Energy only¶
Much of what Bluezero is doing is using Bluetooth Low Energy. It has been
discovered to get reliable connection to Android phones it is best to put the
controller into le only mode. This is done in the /etc/bluetooth/main.conf
file. Ensure that it contains the following:
ControllerMode = le
Creating a Bluezero peripheral¶
A peripheral application will be registered on the DBus using the bus name of
ukBaz.bluezero. An example dbus configuration file is provided and will
need to be copied to the correct location:
sudo cp examples/ukBaz.bluezero.conf /etc/dbus-1/system.d/.
Notes for getting debug information¶
Log of the bluetoothd¶
Stop bluetooth service:
service bluetooth stop
Kill the process (use ‘service bluetooth status’ to get the pid) the launch daemon with debug:
sudo /usr/libexec/bluetooth/bluetoothd -nEd |& tee ~/bluetoothd.log
Manually run bluetoothd with experimental mode with debug:
/usr/libexec/bluetooth/bluetoothd -nEd