|
|
|
Other Tips, Tricks and Tutorials |
|
How to Fix VirtualBox USB SupportStep-by-step tutorial with screenshots |
|
| |
It is actually a known fact that there
is an issue with VirtualBox and the attached USB devices that many of us are trying to use in the virtual machine. Here is a real-life example: I am a 100% Linux user and I have a photo printer that Linux can't recognize. Let's say that I want to print some photos quickly, to give them to someone. I have a Windows installation in a virtual machine just for this reason (sad, I know) and I want to access my printer, which is connected via a USB port. To my surprise, I can see the printer in the USB device list of VirtualBox, but I can't access it (very frustrating). Firing up Firefox and searching on Google for a fix takes too long, because there are many old tutorials that teach you how to modify various files or change permissions, etc. What to do? Well, below is the answer to the endless VirtualBox – USB issue (and it's pretty damn simple too!). This tutorial was created mostly for my needs, but I am sure that many of you will find it very helpful. Ready? This is how a default installation of VirtualBox in Ubuntu 9.04 shows the USB devices, and we need to fix it. Go to System -> Administration -> Users and Groups... Click the "Unlock" button... Type your password and click the "Authenticate" button.... Click on the "Manage Groups" button... In the "Groups settings" window that will appear, scroll down until you see the vboxusers entry. Select it and then click on the "Properties" button... Another window will appear, called "Group 'vboxusers' Properties. Just check the box in front of your username and click the "OK" button when you're done... Close the "Group settings" and "Users Settings" windows and log out. Log in and open up VirtualBox, start your virtual machine and you will see that you can now access the USB devices! Yes... it was that simple!
|
|
|
| Article rating: |
|
Very Good (4.5/5) |
36 vote(s) |
|

|
|
|
User opinions: |
| Comment #1 by: Hussain on 15 May 2009, 14:55 GMT | reply to this comment | Thanks Marius for the tutorial i was looking for the solution since a month. |
| Comment #2 by: Adz on 15 May 2009, 15:30 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #3 by: nocompiz on 15 May 2009, 15:45 GMT | reply to this comment | You need to desactivate Compiz too.
I can't have the mouse with that. |
| Comment #4 by: thagoat on 15 May 2009, 20:27 GMT | reply to this comment | Wow. Don't I feel like a fool. I played with this setting for 3 weeks and deleted my vbox install because of this |
| Comment #6 by: Anonymous on 17 May 2009, 17:23 GMT | reply to this comment | so does anyone know if this will help with problems in installing XP with virtualbox? certain... permission....problems? |
| Comment #6.1 by: Marius Nestor on 18 May 2009, 07:51 GMT | What problems? I am not aware of such "permission" problems, please be more explicit. |
| Comment #7 by: itnet7 on 18 May 2009, 15:40 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #8 by: Andrew on 21 May 2009, 03:07 GMT | reply to this comment | Running VirtualBox 2.2.0 on Debian Lenny. Am already in vboxusers group yet usb devices in virtual machines are grayed out. |
| Comment #8.1 by: rob on 13 Oct 2009, 22:54 GMT | 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 |
| Comment #8.2 by: rob on 13 Oct 2009, 23:06 GMT | duh.. had to logout and login |
| Comment #9 by: mohaned_nj on 22 May 2009, 11:25 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #11 by: Skiesare on 28 May 2009, 16:59 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #12 by: b.h. on 29 May 2009, 06:39 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #13 by: dyess002 on 16 Jun 2009, 05:56 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #15 by: Wow! on 06 Jul 2009, 18:22 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #16 by: Wow! on 06 Jul 2009, 18:35 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #17 by: André on 24 Jul 2009, 15:57 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #17.1 by: Marius Nestor on 31 Jul 2009, 14:09 GMT | Install the DEB package from www.virtualbox.org not from the Ubuntu repository! |
| Comment #17.2 by: nazmieski on 23 Dec 2009, 03:15 GMT | I think urs is OSE that's why u dont have USB menu. |
| Comment #20 by: Live on 09 Aug 2009, 06:10 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #22 by: Franki on 14 Aug 2009, 14:26 GMT | reply to this comment | This just confirms my belief that many problems can be solved simply. Thank you!! |
| Comment #23 by: Rocco on 24 Aug 2009, 15:27 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #24 by: Ashura on 28 Aug 2009, 01:27 GMT | reply to this comment | Wow really nice. it work . thanks Marius |
| Comment #25 by: tsai on 29 Aug 2009, 18:34 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #26 by: walterav on 18 Sep 2009, 08:29 GMT | reply to this comment | Thanks it still works!
ubuntu 9.04 kernel verion 2.6.28-15 + virtualbox 3.02 |
| Comment #27 by: mzsade on 21 Oct 2009, 11:17 GMT | reply to this comment | Thanks, i had given up on, and about to remove, virtualbox when i found your life-saver. |
| Comment #28 by: Paul on 25 Oct 2009, 11:28 GMT | reply to this comment | Thank you very very much for such a simple work around without playing with the console. |
| Comment #31 by: whit on 19 Nov 2009, 23:24 GMT | reply to this comment | wow that was really helpful! I had been researching this answer for almost 2 days! Thanks so much! :) |
| Comment #32 by: jone on 01 Dec 2009, 07:50 GMT | reply to this comment | it doesn't work on ubuntu 9.10 with virtual box 3.0.10. is there any way to solve like this?? |
| Comment #33 by: Don Birdsall on 04 Dec 2009, 17:52 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #34 by: Vinnie1 on 10 Dec 2009, 21:43 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #35 by: Herry on 19 Dec 2009, 05:13 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 ..... |
| Comment #35.1 by: Marius Nestor on 22 Dec 2009, 10:35 GMT | 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. |
| Comment #36 by: gordon on 19 Dec 2009, 21:18 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #37 by: IT on 24 Dec 2009, 03:23 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #37.1 by: Marius Nestor on 25 Dec 2009, 10:36 GMT | Do NOT user VirtualBox OSE, uninstall it and install a version from the virtualbox.org website. |
| Comment #38 by: DGremlin on 29 Dec 2009, 07:38 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #39 by: m.nour on 02 Jan 2010, 11:40 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #41 by: Stopping By on 06 Jan 2010, 11:53 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #43 by: Paul on 08 Jan 2010, 09:58 GMT | reply to this comment | 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? |
| Comment #44 by: Paul on 08 Jan 2010, 10:20 GMT | reply to this comment | 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. |
| Comment #48 by: YannDMX on 12 Jan 2010, 02:13 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #50 by: Ngoc Loi on 20 Jan 2010, 10:52 GMT | reply to this comment | You are my Man!
it's very useful for me,
thanks
Ngoc Loi
Viet Nam |
| Comment #51 by: Achu on 22 Jan 2010, 09:16 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #52 by: Nur D. on 22 Jan 2010, 21:31 GMT | reply to this comment | your tutorial is really the best.
i 've tried to follow other tips, but nothing, so i was going crazy.
thank you very much. |
| Comment #53 by: David on 25 Jan 2010, 18:41 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #53.1 by: Marius Nestor on 26 Jan 2010, 09:21 GMT | 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! |
| Comment #54 by: GrahamG on 28 Jan 2010, 23:22 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #55 by: GrahamG on 28 Jan 2010, 23:47 GMT | reply to this comment | @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 |
| Comment #56 by: Martin on 31 Jan 2010, 13:30 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #57 by: Paolo on 07 Feb 2010, 14:44 GMT | reply to this comment | 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 |
| Comment #57.1 by: Marius Nestor on 09 Feb 2010, 09:48 GMT | 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... |
|
|
|