Fedora VirtualBox USB working

Scenario / Question:

How do I get VirtualBox USB support to work in Fedora ?

Solution / Answer:

Configure usbfs to allow vboxusers access to USB devices and add usbfs mount to /etc/fstab

Configure VirtualBox USB

Obtain the GID of the vboxusers group (your GID may different then 501):

# cat /etc/group |grep vboxusers |awk -F : '{print $3}'
501

Create a directory to mount usbfs in:

# mkdir /vbusbf

Add mount to /etc/fstab and change “devgid” value to the GID you obtained from the command above:

# echo none /vbusbf usbfs rw.devgid=501,devmode=664 0 0

Re-mount /etc/fstab mounts:

# mount -a

Add your user to the vboxusers group (change “username” to your username):

# usermod -a -G vboxusers username

Enable USB controller in VirtualBox for VM Host:

Settings > USB

virtualbox_usb

virtualbox_usb

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Fabio Milano has written 79 articles for us. Fabio Milano is a certified RHCE, MCP, and CFOI. He runs an IT consulting and services company called RDS Support inc. Website:http://www.rdssupport.com
The information provided is for educational purposes only. All content including links and comments is provided "as is" with no warranty, expressed or implied. Use is at your own risk and you are solely responsible for what you do with it.

12 Comments so far

  1. [...] http://www.kernelhardware.org/fedora-virtualbox-usb-working/ a few seconds ago from choqoK [...]

  2. alan on July 28th, 2010

    will this work for fedora 12 and 13?

    i was able to see the usb device mounted on virtualbox (winxp as guest OS) but i could not access the contents on the USB, i got a message that said that the filesystem is not recognized,
    i am using FAT32 for my usb device

  3. fx on August 1st, 2010

    thanks, this does work on my fedora 12
    but i’m still wondering why usb devices were already writeable for my user while only owned by root:root.
    Since i’m not a member of the root group it means there is another way to be given the rights on the device which is not used by virtualbox but it should be (a policy ?).

  4. Phil on August 28th, 2010

    The echo command is missing a redirect

    >> /etc/fstab

    This does not seem to help on CentOS-5 – still no USB access.

  5. Todor on May 27th, 2011

    Thanks this make it work on Fedora 15 too!

  6. sumanth on June 19th, 2011

    excellent one…..didnt find it anywhere in web…got it from u…thanx…

  7. jayron on July 3rd, 2011

    thanks a lot…

  8. Philip Dillon on August 4th, 2011

    Looked everywhere for fixes for Fedora 15. All kinds of information out there and none of it helped. This worked on VB 4.1 for me!

  9. patlefort on September 13th, 2011

    In the following command:

    echo none /vbusbf usbfs rw.devgid=501,devmode=664 0 0

    It should be a ‘,’, not a ‘.’ after rw. The correct command would be:

    echo none /vbusbf usbfs rw,devgid=501,devmode=664 0 0 >> /etc/fstab

  10. Jan Van Ham on December 23rd, 2011

    Hi,

    Seems not to be working on Fedora 16 (x64) and VBox 4.1.8r75467

    “lsusb” give my X10 controller (CMPro15) and when plugging/unplugging I see it appear in the logs on Fedora.

    My “USB device” list remains completely empty in VBox, not even a USB memory stick appears…

    Any clues ?

  11. Jan Van Ham on December 23rd, 2011

    Let me correct this … the good old’ “shutdown -r” already did something … my USB devices *are* now visible in VBox but this specific USB controller is not working unfortunately ;-(
    Tried a regular usb-memory stick and this does work well on my guest XP

    Ohh crap ….

  12. Psymaik on January 28th, 2012

    Thanks!! Work on Fedora 16 –

    If VirtualBox USB doesn’t works after process just reboot !!!

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