[Xastir] Xastir and Mobilinkd Tnc 1 Bluetooth tnc

[Kevin Ratcliff]

>> First I would make sure your user account is in the 'dialout' group on
>> your box. My understanding is that this is used to control access to
>> serial devices in linux, not just modems. So I think you need to be in
>> this group to access /dev/rfcomm0 (which is a bluetooth serial port,
>> thus considered a 'modem').
>
> When I run the command 'ls -l /dev/rfcomm*'  it returns 'crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 216, 0 Nov 6 19:38 /dev/rfcomm0

Okay, that's what I would expect for the device permissions.

I found an Ubuntu 14.04 box that had bluetooth hardware and just tried
this myself. My user account wasn't in the dialout group, so I added
it and was able to connect to /dev/rfcomm0 and converse with a device
over bluetooth. Granted this wasn't to a TNC this time and I didn't
use xastir, it was actually my Aircable 3x serial/bluetooth adapter
(same one I used in 2009) connected to a (non-production) Cisco
switch's console port, but the point is I was able to open the rfcomm0
interface in minicom without error using Ubuntu 14.04.

Let's go back and make absolutely certain the dialout group is set up properly.

If you type 'groups' from the command line, what is returned?

If the word 'dialout' isn't one of the groups listed, you'll need to
run the following command to add your user account to it:

sudo adduser kevin dialout

Obviously replace kevin with your own username.

Then I believe you need to log out of the box and log back in for the
new group permissions to apply.

Run the 'groups' command again to make sure the dialout group is listed.

Then 'sudo rfcomm release 0' and 'sudo rfcomm connect 0'.

Assuming no errors on the above, then try minicom again on
/dev/rfcomm0. If that works, close minicom and try xastir.

If that fixes things I'll update the wiki article and add a section
about the dialout group. If that doesn't fix the issue lets take this
off-list and report back to everyone on the solution once we resolve
it.

Kevin
KB9MQU