Thanks Marius for the tutorial i was looking for the solution since a month.

It is really useful. I searched a lot in the net to find a solution for this problem and i was empty handed until now. Thanks

You need to desactivate Compiz too.
I can't have the mouse with that.

Wow. Don't I feel like a fool. I played with this setting for 3 weeks and deleted my vbox install because of this

Thanks. I have looked for months.

so does anyone know if this will help with problems in installing XP with virtualbox? certain... permission....problems?

What problems? I am not aware of such "permission" problems, please be more explicit.

Marius,

I want to thank you so much for posting this. I have told a lot of people to add their user account to the vboxusers group, some of them were able to without more assistance, but some couldn't understand how to do this (I try and help out users at work and play that are "trying" linux so it's no wonder they can't add the group themselves without much assistance). I was thinking of similarly documenting it, prior to finding this. I will point them in your articles direction!

Thanks for taking the time out to post this.

Chris Crisafulli
itnet7

Running VirtualBox 2.2.0 on Debian Lenny. Am already in vboxusers group yet usb devices in virtual machines are grayed out.

i have the same problem.
here is the proof
rob@robunto:~$ cat /etc/group | grep rob
adm:x:4:rob
dialout:x:20:rob
cdrom:x:24:rob
plugdev:x:46:rob
lpadmin:x:104:rob
admin:x:115:rob
rob:x:1000:rob
sambashare:x:122:rob
vboxusers:x:123:rob
~~~~~
i am in the vboxusers.
bu still greyed out in vertualbox

duh.. had to logout and login

coooooooooooool , it works .......................... at last
but let me inform u that that dosent work only on the last version of VB 2.2.2
thanks alot

It doesn't work...

This will not work with the version in the Ubuntu repositories, you have to down load the version from http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

This is because the USB code is not entirely free and open.

Brilliant,
I could not use vb for ages, I know that I had to a member of vboxusers but it had not been ticked off.
How stupid am I?

Thanks

My vb tells me at the top under devices that there are no usb devices. How do I fix this?
Hope you can come up with something.
Thanks

Thanks so much for the solution.

It's amazing to me how many users missed the large type, bold faced instructions when installing VirtualBox. That notice was to make sure all users that were going to use VirtualBox should be made members of the vboxusers group. I've used VirtualBox for almost two years now, and I didn't miss it when I installed the first time. (Maybe it's the default Ubuntu packages that fail to show the instructions. I installed it into Debian from a package file downloaded from the VirtualBox download site. Synaptic popped up an instruction box at the end of the install with instructions to add users to the vboxusers group.

Make sure the USB device you want activated in VB is plugged in. Open the VB starting window but don't start a machine. Select the machine you want the USB device attached to. Click the "Settings" button. On the left-hand side, choose "USB." Make sure "Enable USB Controller" is selected. Unless you have an older computer, also make sure that "Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller" is also selected. On the far right side, there are several buttons that have a picture of a USB plug and a symbol. The second button from the top is a USB plug with a plus sign. It is to add a device filter from a plugged device. Click it. If your desired device is in the list, select it. This adds the device to the list of devices that can be accessed by VB. If it is not in the list, then you have problems with your USB set up working well with VB.

BTW, when VB is "attached" to a USB device, the same device becomes unavailable in your host OS. If this is for an external drive, it is best to register the external drive as a shared folder in VB. This way both the host and the guest can access the external drive at the same time.

I don't even have "USB" on the menu to the left, all I have is:

General
Hard Disks
CD/DVD-ROM
Floppy
Audio
Network
Serial Ports
Shared Folders

And I've seen screenshots of the menu and they all have a USB tab, but I don't. What the heck? I don't have that USB icon on the bottom of the VB window that you have in your screenshots either.

Install the DEB package from www.virtualbox.org not from the Ubuntu repository!

I think urs is OSE that's why u dont have USB menu.

Dude. This is a life saver !!!

Will try, do you need to reboot?

In my case, you need to LOGOUT of Ubuntu.

This will reset Users and Groups.

Don't need to reboot, remember this when you change users and groups in the future. Thanks for the info.

PS Can you change the design of the website, it's really hard to read and type using small letters.

You are an ANGEL!!!

This just confirms my belief that many problems can be solved simply. Thank you!!

This is a good tutorial. However, this does not work for everyone. While I am able to connect my usb devices, I am unable to access them with USB 2.0 enabled. When I disable USB 2.0, everything works.

Wow really nice. it work . thanks Marius

I have followed the instructions above fully. I:
installed VB 3.0
added my user to the vboxusers group
enabled usb 2.0
logged out/in (even restarted)
disabled usb 2.0

The attached usb items show up on the usb button, but do not show up in the WinXp VM. Am I missing something else?

Thanks
twitter: @tsairox

Thanks it still works!

ubuntu 9.04 kernel verion 2.6.28-15 + virtualbox 3.02

Thanks, i had given up on, and about to remove, virtualbox when i found your life-saver.

Thank you very very much for such a simple work around without playing with the console.

Thanks Marius, this help me a lot

Thank you. You're great!

wow that was really helpful! I had been researching this answer for almost 2 days! Thanks so much! :)

it doesn't work on ubuntu 9.10 with virtual box 3.0.10. is there any way to solve like this??

Fixed my USB problem running VirtualBox 3.0 with Ubuntu 9.10 host. However, you must insert the correct group ID on your system. To do this open a terminal and issue the command..

grep vboxusers /etc/group

You will see something like

vboxusers:x:122:

In this case 122 is the correct group ID.

I have searched Google for about a week to try and solve this problem, like you I was finding a lot of outdated tutorials talking about modifying this file and that, which I tried to no avail.

The fix to the problem is so simple, it's a wonder that when Virtualbox gets installed on the computer that this is not done automatically.

Just for the record -

Ubuntu 9.10 64bit
Virtualbox 3.1

after i follow eatch step above. it still won't work with usb device. my epson r230 is anuavailabel too.

what can i do, please help ..... thx,

how can send you a screen shot to you ?

hope you can help me .....

Upload the image here -> http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ .... and post the link of the image, after the upload.

I also have a problem with my Canon CP740 printer, it says unavailable. I managed to make it work by running VirtualBox as root from the command-line, like this:

sudo VirtualBox

or just hit ALT+F2 and type gksu VirtualBox, enter your password and it should work.

I had good success with this on my samsung N110 netbook and HP NC8000however I used virtualbox version 3.1.12 build 54655.

Thanks very much

Hello,

Thanks for the tut and all, but this does not work for me.
after I did all that, virtualbox (I'm using virtualBox OSE) can not detect and usb's I have in my machine.

help please?
Thanks; IT

Do NOT user VirtualBox OSE, uninstall it and install a version from the virtualbox.org website.

I had to add the following line to /etc/fstab
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=125,devmode=664 0 0

only then did my usb work. ah well.

thanks a lot Marius, that was very useful,

i was wondering if u got something similar but for windows host & linux guest?

i'm still running linux on virtualbox before taking the decision of changing totally to linux, which will be very soon :D

And how to do this on windows?

I am running Fedora 12 with Sun Virtualbox (not Virtualbox OSE) with XP as a guest. I had to REBOOT after I made all of the changes. A log out and login did not cut it.

YES YES YES, you just rock!
thanks

There is a new problem - in 9.10 the Group ID will NOT go to 125, it keeps going back to 0.
Any ideas how to fix this?

Hi, From my last post - I think I may have a solution (well it worked for me) - Change the settings and the Group ID - - But do not close it, open the VBox and the USB settings are there. Then close the goup management and the Group ID stays and you have your USB active. Hope this works for other people who have had the same problem.

Thank you a lot

Thank you !

Your a Star !!!

Thousand Thanks
I just add my username to the vboxusers group and VB views my USB Devices !!!
I'm with Kubuntu 9.10 and the last VB from virtualbox.org
Yannick
France

Thank you!

You are my Man!
it's very useful for me,
thanks

Ngoc Loi
Viet Nam

Hello,
Im using RHEL5
USB works on root but not on user.
I have added the user to vbox group, edited the fstab and tried with adding and removing the usb filters. VB shows the USB - but greyed out.

Can anybody help?
Is there any other file i need to edit, for the right permissions?

Thanks in advance

Achu

your tutorial is really the best.
i 've tried to follow other tips, but nothing, so i was going crazy.
thank you very much.

Using Xubuntu 10.4, VirtualBox 3.1.2 r56127. I followed your instructions, and I still cannot get my printer to work through VirtualBox unless I run it as root. Am I missing something, or is there simply not a workaround at the moment?

Thanks,
David

The tutorial was created with and for Ubuntu 9.04 (the current stable version at that time). Starting with Ubuntu 9.10, things changed... it appears that printers are unavailable for VirtualBox, even if you do the hack from this guide. The current workaround is to run VirtualBox as root. If I find something else, I will modify the tutorial accordingly!

I can't add any other words to those that have already been said about this tutorial.

It's so simple. Like many people, I'd been looking around for months for a way of enabling USB support in VirtualBox. This method works perfectly.

I'm using Linux Mint 8 - Helena and the instructions in this tutorial apply exactly to this version of Mint.

Excellent work and I'm so glad I stumbled across the tutorial.

Big thanks!

Graham, Cambridge, UK

@Achu: Just follow Marius' instructions exactly. There should be no need to edit fstab - I certainly didn't.

The USB filters need to be activated in VB.

If you've followed Marius' instructions about selecting your username and putting a tick against it etc... then everything should work. It didn't for me to start with - the USB devices were still greyed out. If this is the case, simply close VB and then log out / closedown your Linux OS. Now, boot it up against, start VB, select your virtual environment (mine is Windows XP) and this time you will see the USB devices are not greyed out and when you use Windows Explorer you will see any USB hard / pen drives as new drives.

These instructions do work - but you might need to log out / log in just to get things working properly.

Cheers,
GrahamG

For Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic, additionally see this link with a great description: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VirtualBox/USB

Basically, you also need to add this line to your /etc/fstab:

none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=userid,devmode=664 0 0

where "userid" must be replaced with the number in the output of "grep vboxusers /etc/group" (I think this is the group user id of vboxusers, but hit me if I'm wrong).

Then restart and go to your machine settings (machine must be powered off for that). Make sure USB 2.0 is enabled and also APIC IO on the Systems tab must be enabled!

That should do it. Worked great for me on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic with VB 3.1 PLUE.

Cheers,
Martin

hi!
I've a problem, vbox is working perfectly but i wanna have the possibility to use the usb ports...
the guide seems clear and perfect, but i haven't vboxuser in my user e group settings... how can i do

Use the following command in a terminal:

sudo adduser YOURUSERNAME vboxusers

Do not forget to replace YOURUSERNAME with your own user name! Enter your password and you should now see vboxusers...