FreeBSD and bluetooth keyboards

It is not quite straighforward to get a bluetooth keyboard running on FreeBSD.¹ First, the bluetooth service must be started for the device. You can check for the device name in /var/log/messages (in this case it is ubt0).

$ service bluetooth start ubt0

Once started, turn on your bluetooth peripheral and set it to discovery mode i.e., prepare it for pairing. Now, search the device on your FreeBSD box and note its bluetooth address.

$ hccontrol -n ubt0hci inquiry

Add the address to /etc/bluetooth/hosts in the following format:

BD_ADDR     bt-kb

And also add it to /etc/bluetooth/hcsecd.conf in the following way:

device {
    bdaddr  BD_ADDR;
    name    "bt-kb";
    key     nokey;
    pin     "1234";
}

BD_ADDR is the address of the bluetooth device you found with the previous command and bt-kb is an arbitrary name chosen for the device. You can choose whatever name you prefer.

Depending on your device you need to provide a pin. For some devices the bluetooth pin is hardcoded, for others you need to provide the pin chosen here during pairing.

Subsequently enable the following services in /etc/rc.conf:

hcsecd_enable="YES"
bthidd_enable="YES"
sdpd_enable="YES"

Start these services. Then, register your keyboard with the following command:

$ bthidcontrol -a BD_ADDR query >> /etc/bluetooth/bthidd.conf

You further need to load the following kernel module:

$ kldload vkbd

To make this permanent, add the following line to /boot/loader.conf.

vkbd_load="YES"

Make sure that your keyboard is in discovery mode. FreeBSD will try to connect your bluetooth peripheral. If necessary issue the pin you set in hcsecd.conf on your keyboard. (I had to subsequently press 1, 2, 3, 4, and ENTER.)

If you encounter problems, run hcsecd and/or bthidd in foreground with

$ hcsecd -d
$ bthidd -d

and inspect the output. Do not forget to stop their already running instances beforehand.