USB devices in VitualBox

sabashuali

sabashuali

Ani Ma'amin
Hi all

Wondering if someone can help me set-up USB devices for my VirtualBox guest OS (Windows 2000). Not sure why I swapped..... but I had Win XP running although I had the same issue there.

Basically all is working fine, apart from using USB devices. I have the devices connected and recognised in Linux (one is the USB Mouse which I am indifferent to whether it is recognised in Windows or not) .
Then, following the manual, I add the filters according to what I have connected - in the first instance they were the mouse and my TomTom (GPS receiver), so two filters, one for each device.
According to the VB manual, once windows starts, I should reconnect the devices in order for Windows to detect and install the devices.

The problem is that windows does not.... When I go to 'Devices' -> 'USB Devices', both devices are listed but greyed out, so I cannot select them.....
When I hover over the USB icon at the bottom right of the VB window, the tool tip tells me that no devices are attached.....

So.... any ideas? Thanks for looking! :cool:
 
From the VirtualBox Manual:

11.4.6 USB not working

If USB is not working on your Linux host, make sure that the current user has permission to access the USB filesystem (usbfs), which VirtualBox relies on to retrieve valid information about your host’s USB devices. As usbfs is a virtual filesystem, a chmod on /proc/bus/usb has no effect. The permissions for usbfs can therefore only be changed by editing the /etc/fstab file.

For example, most Linux distributions have a user group called usb or similar, of which the current user must be a member. To give all users of that group access to usbfs, make sure the following line is present:
Code: 
[I][COLOR="DimGray"]# 85 is the USB group[/COLOR][/I]
none       /proc/bus/usb        usbfs       devgid=85,devmode=664        0    0
[I][COLOR="DimGray"]Replace 85 with the group ID that matches your system (search /etc/group for “usb” or similar)[/COLOR][/I]
Alternatively, if you don’t mind the security hole, give all users access to USB by changing “664” to “666”.

The various distributions are very creative from which script the usbfs filesystem is mounted. Sometimes the command is hidden in unexpected places. For SuSE 10.0 the mount command is part of the udev configuration file /etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules. As this distribution has no user group called usb, you may e.g. use the vboxusers group which was created by the VirtualBox installer. Since group numbers are allocated dynamically, the following example uses 85 as a placeholder. Modify the line containing (a linebreak has been inserted to improve readability)
Code: 
DEVPATH="/module/usbcore", ACTION=="add",
     RUN+="/bin/mount -t usbfs usbfs /proc/bus/usb"
and add the necessary options (make sure that everything is in a single line):
Code: 
DEVPATH="/module/usbcore", ACTION=="add",
     RUN+="/bin/mount -t usbfs usbfs /proc/bus/usb -o devgid=85,devmode=664"
Debian Etch has the mount command in /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh. Since that distribution has no group usb, it is also the easiest solution to allow all members of the group vboxusers to access the USB subsystem. Modify the line
Code: 
domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev
so that it contains
Code: 
domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=85,devmode=664
As usual, replace the 85 with the actual group number which should get access to USB devices. Other distributions do similar operations in scripts stored in the /etc/init.d directory.
 
Duuuhhhhhhh! :doh:

Why look at the troubleshooting part?

You people think it is easy to be so thick? :x:
You try it for a day or two! :mad:

Thanks AT.... another lesson learned!
 
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