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FillFeile

Member

Registered: 2013-08-07

Posts: 21

[SOLVED] Run bluez hciconfig/hcitool as unprivileged user

Hi there,

I'm currently writing a little Python software that let's you emulate an BLE Beacon on a bluetooth capable linux device.

Due to a lack of good BLE Python librarys I use hcitool and hciconfig to control the bluetooth device.

Both binarys hcitool and hciconfig only do their job while running as root user. Otherwise this error pops up:

hciconfig hci0 up
Can't init device hci0: Operation not permitted (1)

Currently I use a workaround to run the Python software as unprivileged user: I set the setuid bit on the hcitool & hciconfig executable.

Is there a way to privilege a normal user to use hcitool and hciconfig without this workaround?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

FillFeile

Last edited by FillFeile (2016-07-20 16:27:50)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,774

Re: [SOLVED] Run bluez hciconfig/hcitool as unprivileged user

Sudo?

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FillFeile

Member

Registered: 2013-08-07

Posts: 21

Re: [SOLVED] Run bluez hciconfig/hcitool as unprivileged user

.. yeah. Of course.

But I don't want the users to start the whole program with "sudo". GUI etc. don't need to run as root.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,774

Re: [SOLVED] Run bluez hciconfig/hcitool as unprivileged user

I was actually thinking of putting hcitool and hciconfig into sudoers with permissions set to allow users (or perhaps members of a group) to run them without passwords.  Then, your Python program would spawn them through sudo rather than invoking them directly.

---

Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

FillFeile

Member

Registered: 2013-08-07

Posts: 21

Re: [SOLVED] Run bluez hciconfig/hcitool as unprivileged user

After searching on BLE scan rather that send I found this one on StackExchange: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions … s-non-root

sudo setcap 'cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+eip' `which hcitool`
sudo setcap 'cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+eip' `which hciconfig`

These two make it possible to invoke the executables without the need for sudo/root.