How to make smooth USB access available to Virtualbox vm

[Mario Lobo]

On Tue, 5 Jul 2016 19:27:01 +0200
Bernt Hansson <bah at bananmonarki.se> wrote:

> On 2016-07-05 16:15, Manish Jain wrote:
> > On 07/05/16 12:02, Polytropon wrote:  
> >> On Tue, 5 Jul 2016 08:10:49 +0200, CeDeROM wrote:  
> >>> The USB support on VirtualBox is highly unreliable and version
> >>> dependant - it works with some releases and with some releases it
> >>> does not work as expected - not only on FreeBSD (I also use OSX
> >>> version). This is really annoying when USB stops working after an
> >>> update to a new version and you depend on this USB access with
> >>> your work :-(  
> >> Just an idea:
> >>
> >> Why not mount the USB stick on the FreeBSD host system (or even
> >> have Gnome automount it), then make the mount directory accessible
> >> to the "Windows" guest through localhost FTP, localhost SAMBA, or
> >> another means of virtual network?
> >>
> >> It sounds so stupid - it could actually work! ;-)
> >>  
> > Sounds a bit far-fetched and would anyway need to be implemented all
> > over again every time I install FreeBSD.
> >
> > Just wondering if this is possible - I remember there was an
> > application (Nero, I think) - which made it possible to copy/paste
> > to CD/DVD RW from Explorer itself, without the need to actually
> > burn it via a CD/DVD frontend. Is there any way I can use a CD/DVD
> > just as a part of the regular filesystem ? If that is possible, the
> > need for USB support in vbox would largely be mitigated.
> >
> > Is there any other non-USB device which can fill in the need to make
> > shared data available to the guest machine ? IOMEGA floppies I
> > think are no longer used, but if there is something which provides
> > seamless access, I would not mind buying some hardware to solve the
> > problem for good (considering the magnitude of the problem, make
> > that 'for very good').
> >
> > Thanks for any tips.  
> Perhaps this is worth a try.
> 
> http://linux.bytesex.org/misc/webfs.html
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From my side, I've been having woes with VBox usb usage, to the point
that I wrote to the developers of VB directly. What follows is the
conversation I had with Mr. Frank Mehnert | Software Development
Director, VirtualBox.

ME:

> I've been using VB with FreeBSD since its early days, when
> USB 1.0 used to be the standard.
> 
> Now a days, it is no longer viable, even if we downgrade the USB
> connection through the OS to usb 1.0. The device shows up on the guest
> but that is as far as it goes. It simply doesn't work.
> 
> I see that you have pre-compiled extension packs for Windows and Linux
> hosts. VB compiles and works great through the ports in FreeBSD. The
> highest available official version 4.3.38 but through the works of
> Jung-uk Kim, I am running 5.0.20 right now! If it wasn't for this USB
> issue, VB would be completely operational on FBSD!
> 
> You probably have been asked about this a lot, but do you see a
> possibility anywhere in the future, of providing a pre-compiled
> extension pack for FreeBSD? I never understood why Windows and Linux
> have it and FreeBSD doesn't. Is there a particular reason for it?
> 
> Is there anyway I can help with this matter? Anybody in particular I
> can plead for this?
> 
> Again, my apologies for barging in, and thank you for reading and for
> your time.  

Frank:

hard to say. I guess if the USB devices worked in the past then this
was probably because the due to the missing Extension Pack the devices
were forced to use the USB 1 mode.

Providing Extenicode for FreeBSD is not impossible but would require
some effort. The most important part is probably to find a compatible
build environment.

I don't say "No" in general but we need to think about this in more
detail.

Kind regards,

Frank

-- 
Mario Lobo
http://www.mallavoodoo.com.br
FreeBSD since 2.2.8 [not Pro-Audio.... YET!!]
 
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, 
because that would also stop you from doing clever things."