This is an embarrassing question. I am ashamed to be asking it here. But since the command has no man page, installs with no documentation, and there is f-all for enduser resources at bluez.org, here I am. The question is somewhat different from other, previous questions regarding bluetoothctl, in that it's not so much about how to use it to achieve some device-related goal, and more about... just, how to use it, period.
bluetoothctl has two modes of operation:
- A command-line mode, where you issue commands like
bluetoothctl pair <some device MAC>orbluetoothctl discoverable-timeout 300or whatever, and get immediate results. - An interactive mode, where you run
bluetoothctlto start it and are dropped into an interactive, shell-like prompt where commands can be issued and results shown.
It's that second mode that I'm trying to make useful. My problem is (and you'll see in a second why it's a problem) that I live in an apartment building where there's a fair amount of "ambient" bluetooth traffic constantly being picked up by my adapter's radio. I also already have a working, paired bluetooth mouse, which I use as my sole pointing device on the system.
Because that mouse and the other devices are all there, and because of the way bluetoothctl apparently works, anytime I run the command and get dropped into the interactive prompt, I also trigger a CONSTANT spew of traffic messages being scrolled onto the screen.
Within a second or two of my running the command, my terminal looks like this:
(I've randomly replaced all occurrences of multiple MAC digits with an asterisk, which should be enough to avoid any privacy issues. Only two of those devices are even mine, anyway.)
$ bluetoothctl
[CHG] Device 7*:*4:4*:1B:11:70 RSSI: -*8
[CHG] Device 74:78:D*:*2:*0:2* RSSI: -81
[CHG] Device **:02:*0:9*:**:B7 RSSI: -*3
[CHG] Device 2*:*9:9D:**:92:BD RSSI: -74
[CHG] Device 7*:*4:4*:1B:11:70 RSSI: -83
[CHG] Device B8:78:2*:2C:D4:1* RSSI: -*8
[CHG] Device **:02:*0:9*:**:B7 RSSI: -*3
[CHG] Device B8:78:2*:2C:D4:1* RSSI: -72
[CHG] Device 2C:41:*1:**:D2:2* RSSI: -*0
[CHG] Device **:02:*0:9*:**:B7 RSSI: -*2
[CHG] Device B8:78:2*:2C:D4:1* RSSI: -*9
[CHG] Device 10:2B:41:48:**:0* RSSI: -7*
[CHG] Device 2*:*9:9D:**:92:BD RSSI: -81
[CHG] Device 74:78:D*:*2:*0:2* RSSI: -82
[CHG] Device 78:*D:*B:97:**:74 RSSI: -89
[CHG] Device 78:*D:*B:97:**:74 ManufacturerData Key: 0x0211
[CHG] Device 78:*D:*B:97:**:74 ManufacturerData Value:
11 22 74 *f 97 eb ."t_..
[CHG] Device 78:*D:*B:97:**:74 ManufacturerData Key: 0x3*b0
[CHG] Device 78:*D:*B:97:**:74 ManufacturerData Value:
01 c4 41 *9 c9 04 f9 a9 07 1* 03 f0 fd 81 *8 02 ..*i..........h.
b0 a0 9* *0 04 f9 09 dc 1e f* 12 ...`.......
[CHG] Device **:02:*0:9*:**:B7 RSSI: -*3
[CHG] Device 2*:*9:9D:**:92:BD RSSI: -81
[CHG] Device 74:78:D*:*2:*0:2* RSSI: -83
[CHG] Device 7*:*4:4*:1B:11:70 RSSI: -70
[CHG] Device 2*:*9:9D:**:92:BD RSSI: -80
[CHG] Device B8:78:2*:2C:D4:1* RSSI: -**
[CHG] Device 10:2B:41:48:**:0* RSSI: -74
[CHG] Device 7*:*4:4*:1B:11:70 RSSI: -*8
[CHG] Device B8:78:2*:2C:D4:1* RSSI: -72
[CHG] Device 10:2B:41:48:**:0* RSSI: -74
[mouse]#
And it is relentless. So much so, that anytime I type an interactive command, the output it produces is scrolled offscreen before I even have a chance to read it!
Without a man page, and with the interactive mode effectively inaccessible, I can't get enough information out of the tool to figure out: Is there any way to shut that traffic spew UP so that I might be able to actually make use of the interactive shell?
