New unknown item appears in Network Connections

Seniark · 01-18-2021, 11:38 AM

I have Manjaro XFCE on my laptop (an older model from 2013, Dell Inspiron 3521).

Not long ago I tried to use my mobile phone’s internet connection and to tether it on my laptop. This didn’t work for WiFi, so I tried to do it over bluetooth. I read somewhere that this should be typed into the terminal to enable tethering over bluetooth (and I’m not sure if that’s correct):

Code:

dbus-send --system --type=method_call --dest=org.bluez /org/bluez/hci0/dev_xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx org.bluez.Network1.Connect string:'nap'

where xx:x:xx:xx:xx:xx is I guess your device’s bluetooth number/address.

I did that and it didn’t work, so I kinda gave up on the whole tethering thing. However, ever since I typed that line into the terminal, whenever I restart the computer I see in my Network connections a new item called “Bridge” and then “pan1” as the subitem (please see the attached picture).

https://imgur.com/a/IA0GflV

Since I don’t have a need for bluetooth tethering anymore (and it doesn’t seem to be working anyway), I would like to get rid of this “Bridge” and “pan1” items and of course I don’t want any bluetooth service to be running/to be open because it might unnecessarily expose my laptop to the outside hacker attacks.

Even if I delete this item (pan1) from network connections it will always reappear after the computer is restarted.

Could somebody please help with this?

Also, my bluetooth icon in the system tray ALWAYS turns itself on after every Manjaro restart even though I have uncommented the line "AutoEnable=false" in this file: /etc/bluetooth/main.conf.

https://imgur.com/KeHokrU

How to make Manjaro remember that I want bluetooth to be turned off after every reboot?

yancek · 01-18-2021, 12:30 PM

I don't use Manjaro but if you are using Network Manager, try looking in the file: /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections
If there is an entry there for pan1, delete it.

Seniark · 01-18-2021, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

I don't use Manjaro but if you are using Network Manager, try looking in the file: /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections
If there is an entry there for pan1, delete it.

Unfortunately, I don't see an entry for pan1 there. I do see entries for some older connections which I made myself but deleted them from Network Connections the regular way. I thought they were gone but I could see them in that folder. I deleted them now, but that probably won't solve the "pan1" entry problem.

computersavvy · 01-21-2021, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seniark

Unfortunately, I don't see an entry for pan1 there. I do see entries for some older connections which I made myself but deleted them from Network Connections the regular way. I thought they were gone but I could see them in that folder. I deleted them now, but that probably won't solve the "pan1" entry problem.

look inside the files to see if pan1 is there. "grep pan1 /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/* " or something similar to find it.

Seniark · 01-22-2021, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by computersavvy

look inside the files to see if pan1 is there. "grep pan1 /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/* " or something similar to find it.

I typed into the terminal what you recommended (I had to add sudo before to make it work), but I didn't get anything (empty line).

When I open /etc/NetworkManager/ folder I see these files and folders:

https://imgur.com/a/v6q91cM

The second picture is the contents of the folder system-connections (there is only one file, for my current router).

The contents of that file is on this screenshot (with my wifi username and password censored):

https://imgur.com/a/v7gd9sI

All the other folders inside the NetworkManager folder are empty (even when I look for hidden files). The contents of the NetworkManager.conf file is just two lines of comments:

Code:

# Configuration file for NetworkManager.
# See "man 5 NetworkManager.conf" for details.

In my opinion, this pan1 thing is somehow independent of Network Manager because it always reappears after every reboot, although I keep deleting it. I guess it is somehow dependent on the bluez, but I know nothing about that.

Seniark · 02-10-2021, 10:38 AM

Well, I find it hard to believe that none of the experts for networking here can think of a way to undo or neutralize what I achieved by typing this into the terminal:

Code:

dbus-send --system --type=method_call --dest=org.bluez /org/bluez/hci0/dev_xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx org.bluez.Network1.Connect string:'nap'

that's when the "pan1" thing started to appear in the network connections under the "bridge" section (which also didn't exist prior to that).

Anyone please? This is driving me crazy...

kilgoretrout · 02-10-2021, 11:20 AM

You can try exploring this from a bluetooth perspective. You want to see what devices are configured to pair with your laptop bluetooth by running:

Code:

$ bluetoothctl

that will get you to a [bluetooth]# command prompt where you run:

Code:

[bluetooth]# paired-devices

then you will see the list of devices you have paired with and their corresponding MAC address. See if any of the paired devices look like they could be creating your pan1 network bridge. If you see any entry that looks suspicious, you can remove it with:

Code:

[bluetooth]# remove aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff

replacing aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff with the MAC address of the device to un-pair.
Exit the [bluetooth]# prompt with:

Code:

[bluetooth]# exit

Seniark · 02-11-2021, 03:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kilgoretrout

You can try exploring this from a bluetooth perspective. You want to see what devices are configured to pair with your laptop bluetooth by running:

Code:

$ bluetoothctl

Ok, after installing bluez-utils, I now have the bluetoothctl command. I see only my two mobile phones as paired devices, none of which is actually the "pan1" item in the bridge section...

I've removed both paired devices, but the "pan1" item still appears in the network connections, just below my Wi-Fi connections. Even if I delete this "pan1" item, it will reappear again after the reboot.

kilgoretrout · 02-11-2021, 12:02 PM

Something keeps creating and starting a bridge network, pan1, on boot. The usual suspect would be systemd. The Arch wiki describes a method of creating a bridge network with systemd here:

https://www.linuxsecrets.com/archlin...idge_interface

I don't know if one was inadvertently created when you ran your command, but per the above, you might want to check in /etc/systemd/network/ for any suspicious files, particularly ones with the word "bridge" or "pan1" in their name. In addition, if you don't want your bluetooth to be running, that also starts with systemd on boot. You can stop it with:

Code:

# systemctl stop bluetooth.service

If you don't want it to restart on boot run:

Code:

# systemctl disable bluetooth.service

The other place to look would be in the systemd bluetooth location which I believe would be at /etc/systemd/system/bluetooth/. Take a look at what files are there.

Seniark · 02-11-2021, 01:48 PM

Unfortunately, nothing can be found under /etc/systemd/network/
That folder seems to be empty

There is no bluetooth folder in /etc/systemd/system. However, this is the list of files and folders that can be seen there:

Code:

[bluestar@bluestar-inspiron3521 system]$ ls
basic.target.wants                          multi-user.target.wants
dbus-org.freedesktop.Avahi.service          network-online.target.wants
dbus-org.freedesktop.ModemManager1.service  printer.target.wants
dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service  sockets.target.wants
dbus-org.freedesktop.timesync1.service      sysinit.target.wants
display-manager.service                     systemd-fsck-silent-root.service
getty.target.wants                          systemd-fsck-silent@.service
linux-module-cleanup.service                timers.target.wants
[bluestar@bluestar-inspiron3521 system]$

I tried to go to the File System level in Catfish File Search (which is just / root folder) and to search for pan1... and believe it or not, I got several hundreds of results, most of which seem to be processes with just 0 bytes. Take a look at this screenshot:

https://imgur.com/hS3kCEv

kilgoretrout · 02-11-2021, 02:54 PM

Did you try to stop or disable bluetooth.service per my above post? If so, what effect did it have on pan1? I'm particularly curious about what happens if you disable bluetooth.service and reboot.

I'm also a little confused about the command you ran. The string sent in your post is designated 'nap' but the bridge network created is pan1. Did you possibly scramble nap to pan?

Bottom line is I'm not that familiar with the dbus-send command and apparently I'm not alone. Just trying to figure it out, the man page is not all that helpful. I'm also handicapped because I don't have Manjaro installed.

Seniark · 02-12-2021, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kilgoretrout

Did you try to stop or disable bluetooth.service per my above post? If so, what effect did it have on pan1? I'm particularly curious about what happens if you disable bluetooth.service and reboot.

Yes, I did try that. It did exactly what it was supposed to do (disabled bluetooth), but it didn't have any effect on the pan1 thing, unfortunately.

Quote:

I'm also a little confused about the command you ran. The string sent in your post is designated 'nap' but the bridge network created is pan1. Did you possibly scramble nap to pan?

No, I'm pretty sure I typed exactly what I quoted here in earlier messages. It seems to be correct that "pan1" appears as the exact mirror opposite of nap1. There are some blogs that I found which talk about these things, but the whole subject seems to be very exotic, and even esoteric, in a way.

Not many people know about these things, apparently.

E.g. take a look at this post on this blog:

https://www.blog.willandnora.com/201...ity-with-rpi3/

Quote:

Bottom line is I'm not that familiar with the dbus-send command and apparently I'm not alone. Just trying to figure it out, the man page is not all that helpful. I'm also handicapped because I don't have Manjaro installed.

It's alright - thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.

I decided to abandon the whole Manjaro installation that was plagued by this issue because it had some other issues as well which have surfaced in the past few days, and I grew tired of them all. So, the easiest way was to simply install a new Manjaro installation on a brand new partition... and as you may expect, this new installation doesn't have any of the old issues.

I didn't delete the old partition/installation of Manjaro, and I still can log into it, but there's no need.