L2CAP next steps

Summer is still here, productivity in code is one of the lowest ones since I remember. Summer is to blame, hardly remember which update i need to give now.

Related my development I did a small incrusion in Caya development, implementing some features I needed to feel comfortable regarding the chat windows behaviour. BTW last release with MSN support!

But focusing on bluetooth L2CAP and its sockets interface has been a bit improved. As we said in the previous post, Haiku could initiate a pairing process and establish a communication link.

The next step was to allow Haiku act as a client to request opening a channel in the given communication link to finally interchange real user information from node to node.

There has been implemented a test application in src/test/kits/bluetooth/l2capClient. I was able to request pairing with a device (a Motorola V5), open a communication channel and send dummy data to him. the phone obviously did not understand information, and closed the communication.

Still unmature and some configuration parameters are unsupported, but if both nodes are Haiku, they could send information that each other understand. Therefore with that implemented some small applications could be implemented to have 2 haiku nodes interchanging normal user data wireless through bluetooth. This opens possibilities to implement small custom and non standard applications to:

• Chat between 2 nodes.
• Send flattened BMessages
• File exchanges

between 2 Haiku nodes.

Por fin!

Haiku initiating encrypted pairing

A bit of status update,

During the last months I have been working stabilizing the HCI layer, and the user interaction to pair. Up to now I was using the remote device to be the master of the communication therefore using that incoming information to guide the implementation.

Haiku could before search for remote devices, but could not decide by itself to communicate with them. Then a "Pair" button has been implemented in preferences. Implementing encrypted and non encrypted pairing with them. Additionally there is a new checkbox in preferences(with an unfortunate location at the moment) to indicate that Haiku requires, that link to be placed between devices, to be encrypted:

This is maybe the most complex messages interchange in HCI layer together with scanning devices. There was then work rewriting and refactoring code in the server to be able to see clearly how sequences flowed.

Here we can see how Haiku forces my phone to match a pincode, hardly readeable as usual, but it says in Spanish "haiku-bluetooth, Add to My Devices?"

Next step is make the same at L2cap layer. Haiku more or less handles l2cap channels as slave, so now it is turn to act as master too...

Some Internal features

There was a bug I carried since long ago, It was hard to detect and its reproduction was depending very much on how well the Slab allocator worked for net_buffers. The debugging shown like trying to send a buffer that was already sent... all fake as it was a reused one.

There were important internal features to be implemented as to have a dedicated thread to handle all incomming RX data, before it was done almost all in interrupt context, therefore the USB or transport bus usage is more responsible now.

Bluetooth Tasks for a GSoC project ...

Haiku Bluetooth Stack implements basic functionality on lower and middle layers, this functionality needs to be completed and all Bluetooth 2.X possibilities explored.

Requirement: Bluetooth enabled Haiku system

Skill set: C++ kernel development, userland development, overview bluetooth stack knowledge(optional)

• New Tasks: 
• RemoteDevices Database
• Manage server existence depending of LocalDevices
• Fixes:
• Fix monitoring of incoming LocalDevices(USB)
• Use LayoutManager for debug console + codestyle it
• LocalDevices allocation/leaking LocalDevice::GetLocalDevice
• Improvements
• UI
• Improve Deskbar Addon
• Improve PinCode Window
• Add Remaining Features in DeviceView
• Put non relevant information under a ToolTip
• Functionality
• UserLand tools(Preferences)
• Retrieve Discovery and DevClass (other settings?) in Startup
• Store information
• Window position
• Default LocalDevice
• Settings (Inquiry time, Policy)
• Pairing/Auth/Encryption use cases ...