[PLUG] Connect BT keyboard to headless Raspberry

[Bill Barry]

On Thu, Jan 20, 2022 at 4:36 PM Eric House <eehouse at eehouse.org> wrote:

> > Your idea should work. I  sort of tested it with the equipment at hand. I
>
> > > first configured the Pi to boot to console using raspi-config. I added
> a
> > > line to the .profile on the Pi to start screen
> > > screen -S raScreen
> > >
> > > then in the .screenrc I have
> > > multiuser on
> > >
> > > This "multiuser on" is not necessary if you are going to ssh into the
> > same
> > user account as screen. I was contemplating a simpler setup  of using ssh
> > to log  into a secondary user account so that the .profile in that
> account
> > would share the screen with the primary user account. that way you would
> > not have to use the "bash -- noprofile" in the ssh.  The other nice
> feature
> > to have would be an autologin by the Pi so that you would not have to
> > blindly enter the username and password, but this is trickier to setup
> and
> > leaves a bit of a security vulnerability.
> >
>
> Ha, it's mostly working! Ok, first I gave up on screen (after 20+ years)
> and switched to tmux, mostly because its name makes help so much easier to
> search for. But I've configured .bashrc so that all interactive logins get
> attached to the same tmux session. And made console logins automatic (after
> modifying sudo to require a password. You need physical access to my Pi (4)
> or a paired bluetooth keyboard, but still better to limit the damage.)
>
> So now I connect the iPad via ssh and the bluetooth keyboard directly and
> its typing shows up on the iPad's screen. Two remaining problems -- that
> might be related, or might be a result of my being a tmux noob.
>
> * Each time I use the keyboard the tmux session shrinks to 80x30, the size
> of /dev/tty1 that the keyboard's talking to. That's maybe 1/3 of the iPad's
> screen.
> * tmux stuff that involves a command buffer, e.g. 'ctrl-b :' doesn't work
> from the keyboard: the buffer doesn't show up, and apparently isn't just
> offscreen because typing something plus return doesn't do anything.
>
> I'm hoping somehow getting /dev/tty1 to report itself as larger lets me
> work around the first problem, and that perhaps I'll find a way to get tmux
> to be the size I tell it to. It's pretty unusual to want the size of the
> session providing keyboard input to be ignored!
>
> (I may try to do this with screen now that I know it's possible. Does
> anybody know if it's better about letting you specify tty dimensions?)
>
> Thanks!
>
> --Eric
>

With screen you can resize the terminal size to fit using ctrl-a F  -
that's your screen's control command followed by a capital F. I don't have
any experience with tmux.

Bill