BLE Keykeeper Ansible Role

This is the server part of BLE Coin, which allows you to run a script when a user authenticates. Using this service, you will never have to manually use the central's serial interface, everything in that regard will be handled by the service.

Quick Start Guide

0 - Obtain Hardware

1. Take a look at the project page for more info.
2. A Raspberry Pi is also recommended.

1 - Prepare central

1. Download nRF Connect for Desktop and install the Programmer App.
2. Download the newest release of the firmware files.
3. Flash the central.hex onto your NRF52840 dongle.

2 - Get ready to flash coins

1. Look here for more advice.

3 - Install dependencies

1. Install Ansible.

4 - Run the role

1. Set up a playbook and inventory
2. Make sure you have set the door_open_command and ble_keykeeper_dir variables to appropriate values.
3. Run your playbook

5 - Try it out

1. Make sure the NRF52840 dongle is connected to the server.
2. Navigate to your ble_keykeeper_dir and create a new coin with ./ble_gen_coin.py winnie. You can change winnie to any name you like (no spaces).
3. Flash the newly created coin_xxxxxxxxxxxx.hex onto you coin. You can delete the file after.
4. Restart the service using systemctl restart ble-keykeeper.service
5. Press the button on your coin. Does it blink? If yes, it found the central.
6. Check the service logs with journalctl -u ble-keykeeper.service. Scroll to the bottom - do you see something like [INFO:root:winnies's coin (100%🔋) authenticated]?

Tips and Tricks

• The service uses a very simple database to save all the required names and keys. It is saved in the central.txt, coins.txt and names.txt files.
• Every line in coins.txt represents a coin as a space-separated tuple of (address, irk, ltk, spacekey). If you remove a line and restart the service, the respective coin will no longer be able to connect.
• Each line in names.txt represents an optional name for a coin's address as a space-separated tuple of (address, name). Edit as you like - it will not affect authentication - but don't break the format. Changes will only be applied on service restart.