iPhone USB / Bluetooth Tethering With Linux

In order for tethering to work, your iPhone must actually have the tethering option enabled. This depends on your network carrier and contract. For iPhone 3.0 OS you can also just install a so-called mobileconfig profile which enables tethering, but this in a gray zone legally. For later firmwares your iPhone additionally needs to be jailbroken and a system file patched which is surely not everybody's thing. Anyway, with that out of the way let's get to the actual setup.

Since we already added the required PPA for general iPhone/iPod Touch Synchronising in our previous article about syncing via GVFS, it's now a snap to install everything needed for tethering via USB and Bluetooth:

sudo apt-get install ipheth-dkms ipheth-utils

Now, reboot. You could try to reload udev rules etc. but since you're probably not doing this on a server just reboot to be safe.

iPhone tethering via USB

To tether via USB, all you need to do now is FIRST enable tethering in your iPhone, stay on that screen and THEN connect your iPhone to your PC/laptop via USB and it will automatically start to tether after a few seconds (you will see an additional blue bar on your iPhone). Now you can leave that screen on your iPhone. If it doesn't automatically start to tether or you have other network connections then NetworkManager should show you a new interface in its dropdown menu (it's called "ifupdown (bnep0)" for me). Just connect to it.

iPhone tethering via Bluetooth

Some people had success with Ubuntu/Gnome's default bluetooth applet but I didn't so I followed other people's advice which was to install blueman to replace current bluetooth panel:

sudo apt-get install blueman

After a reboot you'll have all your Bluetooth functionality back and more!

Now, to tether via Bluetooth, first enable tethering again on your iPhone. Make sure you select both USB & Bluetooth tethering. Then, turn on Bluetooth on your phone and make sure you stay on the bluetooth page in order to be visible. Click on the computer in the iphone search list. Your phone should now show up in Blueman list, too (if not, use the Search in Blueman to find your iPhone). Do a right-click on your iPhone and choose "Setup" in Blueman. You will be asked if you want to use a random password, just go ahead. Enter the PIN code Blueman shows you on your iPhone and just click through to the end to finish the Blueman wizard.

Next, right-click on your iPhone again in the Blueman main window and choose "Trust". Now, you can just right-click on your iPhone in Blueman and select "Update Service" and then choose "Network Access Point (NAP)" again via right-click and you'll be tethering via Bluetooth. You can now leave the Bluetooth screen again. Done!


Please note: It may happen that you need to re-add and re-pair (PIN code) your iPhone every time you want to use Bluetooth to tether. Please also note, that individual program entries may be called something else as I use a non-english Ubuntu. But I'm sure you'll figure it out.

This post was written by StoneCut (many thanks once again!). Browse all of his posts.