I finally have USB Support in Virtualbox

[Pillage Idiot]

After trying off and on for months now to solve the issue of not being able to access USB devices from a Virtualbox machine I have finally cracked it.

I found a thread giving a number of config files that need some editing.
While going through these (most of which did not exist in Lucid) I found a small but significant flaw in one file.

The file is /etc/group and the fault is that the Virtualbox installer did not fill in the vboxusers line correctly.

As added by the Virtualbox installer the entry is vboxusers:*:119:username

I altered this to vboxusers:119:username, as the other entries show it and after a reboot I now have USB support in my virtual machines.

Hopefully this will help someone else, but at least having posted this it will make it easier for me to find the information again.

[GreyGeek]

Re: I finally have USB Support in Virtualbox

Nice work! 8)

[Telengard]

Re: I finally have USB Support in Virtualbox

Looks worthy of a bug report. But I'm confused now which version of Kubuntu you installed VirtualBox on because you mention Intrepid but you post this in Lucid. Also you didn't mention which edition of VirtualBox you installed: free or PEUL? If there is another thread with the rest of the story then you could link to it.

[Pillage Idiot]

Re: I finally have USB Support in Virtualbox

Sorry, so many upgrades I am getting brain fade.

I am on Lucid 64 bit. And it is the Oracle Vbox for Lucid 64 bit Ubuntu.

In the past it has always been said that to get USB support in Vbox you have to use the newer Sun (now Oracle) package rather than the one from the repos.

The thread that I worked through was this one http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...1523#msg151523
Most of it is out of date though, hence most of the files mentioned being missing.
However, this thread did get me looking at the /etc/group file, without which I would still be having to run a laptop beside my workstation for some USB dependent stuff that I use all the time, namely the Grindstone time tracking application. They are yet to release a linux version but are working on it.
Crossover and WINE were out of the question too as it depends on .net3.5 which does not work in either of these yet.
I'll be buggered if I am going to work in Windows all the time, or even have it physically tainting my hard drives, so I was ecstatic to finally get this issue put to bed.

[Telengard]

Re: I finally have USB Support in Virtualbox

Pretty deeps stuff! I haven't had any need for USB on my guest systems yet, but it's good of you to share your experience.

[THHHB]

Re: I finally have USB Support in Virtualbox

Using vbox from sun's own repos, I've had USB support ever since I first installed like two years ago. Just needed to make sure my user was part of the vboxusers group, that's all.

[GreyGeek]

Re: I finally have USB Support in Virtualbox

Using vbox from sun's own repos, I've had USB support ever since I first installed like two years ago. Just needed to make sure my user was part of the vboxusers group, that's all.

Despite using Sun's VBox and being in the vobxusers group I could never get my XP guest to support USB ports.