[SOLVED] No usb access with VBox

camorri · 07-26-2010, 04:44 AM

After some looking around my system, I added my regular usid to the vboxusers group. Not sure if this will help or not, it shouldn't hurt anything. I also have regular users added to the USB group. That shouldn't hurt either.

GlennsPref · 07-26-2010, 07:27 AM

Camorri, please explain what you mean, Because I'm lost....

<edit> I (glenn) as a user I am part of the vboxusers group.
generally that was all I had to do, (make myself part of the "vboxusers" group) if the install went smoothly.

So, I can't understand why this occurs now.

regards Glenn.

p.s. I have a custom kernel, is it possible I have left something out?

I load the vbox modules when required with a script (~/bin/vbox_load.sh), rather that use dkms (dynamic kernel module service) That way it loads when I say, not automagically.

I wonder???

I've had a few beers by now, I should say!

camorri · 07-26-2010, 08:48 AM

Quote:

<edit> I (glenn) as a user I am part of the vboxusers group.
generally that was all I had to do, (make myself part of the "vboxusers" group) if the install went smoothly.

The only thing I'm suggesting is adding your regular user to the usb group, in addition to the regular user being added to the vboxusers group ( which you already have ).

I'm doing everything on a stock kernel, and DKMS is doing its thing on my system. I have no experience with custom kernels, so I can not help there.

GlennsPref · 07-26-2010, 03:11 PM

I've also tried adding vboxusers, and myself to the usb group, but I found no difference.

My kernel is not so custom, Just configured and re-built by me with the sources.

ntfs r/w, usb-audio, amd-gart, but no major customisations.

This could be a setting I have set in msec, I'll have to go right through it to check.

Maybe this arvo(afternoon).

Regards Glenn

skola · 07-28-2010, 08:38 AM

Glenn, here's something that may be worth a try.

You know your usb devices show up under /proc/bus/usb and then under the sub-dirs /001 /002 etc depending on sockets etc. The devices you have plugged in will show up as a file under each of those and this filename will be probably 002, 003 etc - the file showing 001 will be the actual socket.

Set the permissions of the _device_ file to be 'rwx' for group 'vboxusers' and/or 'others'.

I'm happy doing many things at the CLI but the chmod/chown permissions is not one of these so I use that great terminal prog Midnight Commander which has carried on working in its own way without all the hassle that has appeared in recent Linux times like KDE4 and hal/udev or kernel stuff giving us problems like yours and mine (other thread).

M.C. has its own drop-down menu to do all manner of things to files/directories and the chown/chmod bits give a nice visual feedback of the octal - 664/775 - type so you can see what applying 'rwx' for each set will do number-wise.

I said above to change the permissions for the 2 groups beside 'owner' as "and/or" meaning that for my own bizarre experience I found that one distro would need both done whereas another needed the 'others' only.

And that was despite the 'owner' being set as me or the actual login user.

Even having fstab entries to get the /proc/bus/usb coming up _and_ giving it and an entry for usbfs device node permissions, all my usb devices could be used but not in VBox with recent kernels. When I did the permissions change manually on the device entries as above - eureka!!!

Christ knows what actual code that's running in those newer kernels and/or newer hal/udev causing this grief.

GlennsPref · 07-28-2010, 08:14 PM

Hi, I am familiar...

Quote:

without all the hassle that has appeared in recent Linux times like KDE4 and hal/udev or kernel stuff giving us problems like yours and mine (other thread).

I start vbox by first loading the modules and confirming they are loaded.

~/bin/vbox_load

Code:

#!/bin/zsh
# /home/glenn/bin/vbox_load
echo "load modules for vbox."
sudo modprobe -f vboxdrv
sudo modprobe -f vboxnetadp
sudo modprobe -f vboxnetflt
echo "list vbox modules"
sudo lsmod | grep vbox

This way I don't get messages about dkms, kernel and graphics dependency errors.

I changed the permissions with this,

Code:

#/dev/bus/usb
sudo chown -hR glenn:glenn /dev/bus/usb
sudo chmod -R 775 /dev/bus/usb

but I don't think it completed.

Just checking now...
ls -la /dev/bus/usb/003 & 004...

Code:

glenn@GamesBox:~$ ls -la /dev/bus/usb/003                                    (29-07 11:07)
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root            60 2010-07-29 10:48 ./
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root           120 2010-07-29 10:48 ../
crw-rw-r-- 1 root vboxusers 189, 256 2010-07-29 10:48 001
glenn@GamesBox:~$ ls -la /dev/bus/usb/004                                    (29-07 11:07)
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root            60 2010-07-29 10:48 ./
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root           120 2010-07-29 10:48 ../
crw-rw-r-- 1 root vboxusers 189, 384 2010-07-29 10:48 001
glenn@GamesBox:~$                                                            (29-07 11:07)

I try again, being more specific.

Maybe ...vbox_load then the permissions?

Back soon.

And thank you!

Regards Glenn

GlennsPref · 07-28-2010, 08:23 PM

... double post.

unclejed613 · 07-30-2010, 06:34 AM

quick answer? here it is, you (and i) downloaded the free version of VBox. the free version has USB crippled. i also got the free version of VMware's VMPlayer, and USB works just fine on it...

skola · 07-30-2010, 06:55 PM

Glenn, no, I said the /proc/bus/usb directories. And then you drill down to the seperate /001 /002 ... dirs where each of those will have a file entry for the device plugged in. It's the file entry for the device you need to chown.

The file 'devices' that's in /proc/bus/usb will list all the usb stuff plugged in and should show which bus entry it's in. For your problem device, look for its name in that file and then see which actual bus it's plugged into - /001 or /002 etc - then go to /001 and there another file named 002 (because the socket for that bus will be 001) will relate to your actual usb device.

Double check that by unplugging all stuff and see that there are only the 001 files in those sub-dirs., Wait and then plug 1 device back into a usb socket. The time stamp of the file that appears will be obviously different from the "socket 001" file.

GlennsPref · 07-31-2010, 02:24 AM

Thanks, I thought I did that ,

but will do the checks,

I have reinstalled and still it's the same.

Talk soon, Regards Glenn

ps, I have found near no benefits from newer kernels, I might trying the older versions that worked.

I'm not developing, just want to play a game I got with a video card.

GlennsPref · 07-31-2010, 02:34 AM

I'll get midnight Commander

Midnight commander is broken on my system.

GlennsPref · 07-31-2010, 03:11 AM

UncleJed613, I don't think so,

but that is kinda what I suspected at first

I thought the license may of changed.

regards Glenn

unclejed613 · 08-01-2010, 12:32 PM

i went back and looked... i guess the PUEL version is supposed to have usb support, the OSE version does not. if you get it figured out, i'm still subscribed to this thread. in the meantime, i'm using VMware. i needed to talk to a TI evaluation module for a project, and couldn't wait around for an answer on VBox... if you get it figured out, great, i think VBox runs faster and smoother than VMware.... but in the meantime, VMware is working for what i need it for.

GlennsPref · 08-01-2010, 11:57 PM

Thanks for that, Today, I am rebuilding and reinstalling the custom kernel,

When I find a replicable conclusion, I'll post back..

Cheers Glenn

GlennsPref · 08-02-2010, 04:21 AM

check kernel config, rebuild and install (to be sure, to be sure).

Reinstall nvidia graphics card (NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-256.35.run)

Installed no problems, so I know the sources are installed correctly(?)

find and remove all except the virtual-machines and HardDisks. (winxpsp2 in this case)
/home/glenn/local/vm1/.VirtualBox/Machines/winxpsp2/winxpsp2...
/home/glenn/local/vm1/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/winxpsp2/...

locate vbox, sudo rm -rf
locate VirtualBox, sudo rm -rf

After that I rebooted, then updatedb, and searched again.

I found some stale links to vbox programs in /usr/bin, sudo rm -rf

Once satisfied I had removed all instances of vbox,
I then reinstalled ver (VirtualBox-3.2.6-63112-Linux_amd64.run)

Once again before starting the virtual machine I was able to select which usb devices I wanted access to,

Namely the Joystick. Logitech, Extreme 3D. Even now, the winxp VM is running, in the Oracle VM window it shows one usb device active, but from the winxp VM they are all greyed out and when moused-over, the message is

Quote:

Indicates the activity of the attached usb devices:
No usb devices attached

The US banned this game after 9/11 because of the realism of tech involved for radar, communications, tactics and weapons systems.

They managed to cripple the game with the agp-2.0 code 8 or 9 odd years ago (win2k).

So, I'm sus, but I don't believe it.

Checking Permissions...

user.
changed primary user of vboxusers (user) to vboxusers, and made glenn a member of the vboxusers.
group.
vboxusers has vboxusers, glenn, root, usb and games as members of the group.

(I had glenn as the primary user of vboxusers (user)) reboot!

Regards Glenn