Bluetooth data connection to wired network?

[depscribe]

This has nothing to do with a telephone. It is about trying to set up my TouchPad to connect to the Internet via a bluetooth connection to a notebook machine which is connected to a wired network.

Here's the problem: the local college whence my company rents space has a wireless network to which we do not have access. They have additionally prohibited the installation of wireless routers. We do have a wired network onto which I place my notebook machine, which has bluetooth. Using bluetooth I'd like to be able to gain access to the Web via the notebook machine.

I have never done anything remotely like this before. I have the two machines recognizing each other via bluetooth, but there is where I've stopped.

I've seen reference to this, leading me to conclude it can be done, but I do not know how to bring it about.

Anyone know a good recipe or the location thereof?

Again, I'm not trying to tether to a telephone but to a laptop machine.

Thanks!

[ccx]

not sure its accessed via bluetooth but would something like this work for you? Connectify » Your Hotspot, Your Way

[alex80386]

Originally Posted by ccx

not sure its accessed via bluetooth but would something like this work for you? Connectify » Your Hotspot, Your Way

That link appears to show a method where the computer is turned into a wireless router, which according to the OP, is against the rules.

If you run the 'ifconfig' command in novaterm or xterm, it shows just the devices 'eth0' (wireless ethernet interface) and the loopback interface. So there would need to be some sort of TCP/IP over Bluetooth implementation added to the Touchpad, so the bluetooth interface can also be used as a network interface. There is the Linux BlueZ package which has BNEP (Bluetooth Networking Encapsulation Protocol), but I'm not sure what the chances are of adding this to the Touchpad.
BlueZ » About

Then BlueZ (or other software providing BNEP) is needed on the pc too.

[depscribe]

Originally Posted by ccx

not sure its accessed via bluetooth but would something like this work for you? Connectify » Your Hotspot, Your Way

Thanks very much -- I tried Connectify the very first hours I had my TouchPad when I discovered that until I registered it with HP via wireless it would not work at all. It turns out that among the things HP left out (in what I imagine was an effort to sell the webOS telephones they at the time intended to oneday sell) is the ability to see and connect to "ad hoc" networks, which is what Connectify creates. (A co-worker 30 feet away, however, saw my ad hoc network on his iPhone!) It turns out that -- perhaps for the same reason -- HP removed or, to be charitable, did not supply, the underpinnings for a "PAN" or personal area network, in its bluetooth support, which as I understand it was long ago based on Bluez. Data networking over bluetooth requires this or "DUN," for dial-up metworking, also banished from the TouchPad's bluetooth stack.

It would be nice of HP to free up some of this, or to add support back in, inasmuch as it is no longer to their gain to have it blocked, but no doubt there's a pencil pusher somewhere who sees some reason to believe that this diminishes the value of webOS to the long string of companies who are fighting [reports and rumors that say they are going] to buy it. (IBM did the same thing when it essentially abandoned desktop OS/2 as part of its "we have met the consumer and we don't much like him" strategy.)

[wushu2004]

I have successfully used Connectify on my laptop to hook my phone up to my house's internet before my laptop bit the dust.

[depscribe]

I believe I have read that some earlier phone versions of webOS did in fact support ad hoc networks. But I'm thinking about the TouchPad, which doesn't.

[wushu2004]

I tried doing what connectify does, manually using adhoc which failed on my pixi plus. I'm pretty sure you can set connectify to do both adhoc and (the other).

[DrPotoroo]

There is a thread on making the TP see ad-hoc networks. Have a look around.

[depscribe]

Originally Posted by DrPotoroo

There is a thread on making the TP see ad-hoc networks. Have a look around.

i believe i've read all the threads on the topic, and have found no one who has gotten a touchpad to work on an ad hoc network. if you find one, i wish you'd link it here.

[ccx]

would this be of any use? [webOS] [GUIDE] Connect to an Ad-Hoc Network - xda-developers

[depscribe]

Originally Posted by ccx

would this be of any use? [webOS] [GUIDE] Connect to an Ad-Hoc Network - xda-developers

I'd read that and hope something a little less kludgy and a lot more secure could be arrived at. The ideal, really, would be PAN/DUN via bluetooth. The remedy the poster to which you point provides a sort of proof-of-concept; I think most of us would do without before attempting that method in hope of doing work as a result.

But thanks for posting it. There are so many tools to which we've become accustomed on other machines that are absent on the TouchPad. I try to be charitable toward HP, but some days it's easier than others!

[ccx]

I'm guessing it be only a matter of time before something turns up. I don't really know too much about all this, but if you ever find a solution please post back what you did to get it to work