====== udev rules ======

Folk practices assume you have a keyboard in ''/dev/input/by-path/''. Bluetooth keyboards may not get put there automatically. Lucky for us, we can create a rule to tell the system to put your keyboard there when connected.

> This guide assumes you have successfully connected a keyboard following [[https://github.com/FolkComputer/folk?tab=readme-ov-file#bluetooth-keyboards|the setup guide]].


===== Getting keyboard information =====
Every device has a MAC address: a unique name that can be used to identify it with other devices. We can use the bluetoothctl command to get the MAC addresses of paired bluetooth devices.
<code bash>
bluetoothctl devices Paired
</code>
On my machine, the output looks like this

{{:guides:pasted:20240114-201108.png}}

So in this case the MAC address is ''20:10:01:DE:30:B8''.


===== Adding the rule =====
Now we have to tell the computer that when a device with that MAC address connects it should attach it to some file in ''/dev/input/by-path/''. You can find more information about udev rules at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Udev#udev_rule_example

Create (or edit) a file called ''/etc/udev/rules.d/99-input.rules''. Using my MAC address above as an example, add a line that creates a filepath for your keyboard's MAC address

<code>
ATTRS{uniq}=="20:10:01:de:30:b8", SYMLINK+="input/by-path/keyboard-20:10:01:de:30:b8"
</code>

Here I use the naming convention ''keyboard-[[MAC address]]'', but it really doesn't matter what you name it. Just try to do something that would be unique.

===== Checking your work =====
Disconnect and reconnect your keyboard. There should now be a file in ''/dev/input/by-path/''

{{:guides:pasted:20240114-202353.png}}

Folk will now be able to recognize your bluetooth keyboard after restarting (e.g. ''sudo systemctl restart folk'') 🎉