How to make smooth USB access available to Virtualbox vm

[Priyadarshan]

On Tue, 5 Jul 2016, at 19:36, Mario Lobo wrote:
> 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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> > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
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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
 


I know that the subject line reads «How to make smooth USB access
available to Virtualbox vm», but I was wondering if anybody has
successfully shortcut that issue by using Bhyve with the -s switch?

As per the wiki [1], «The bhyve hypervisor now supports Microsoft
Windows virtual machines as of FreeBSD HEAD SVN tag r288524» 

[1] https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/Windows

Priyadarshan