Hi all
There is currently a known problem with accessing USB disks on a Virtual Machine from SUSE 10.2 due to the USBFS file system not being compiled in the kernel. VMWARE assumes the USB drives are mounted on a device / file system that doesn't exist any more in the kernel (unless you compile a special one yourself).

For those who don't want to mess around with creating non standard kernels here is a really easy solution.

The main problem is often that you want to WRITE to a NTFS Disk using a Windows Guest on a Linux Host. Normally you just plugged in the USB disk (or "attached it") to the Guest Windows VM where Windows would just treat it as another local disk.

This won't work in SUSE 10.2 since the USB disk can't be attached to the Windows VM. You won't see any USB devices enabled on your Windows VM even if you unplug and re-plug the disk(s).

Still all is not lost as SAMBA comes to the rescue (both for READING and WRITING). So ensure you have SAMBA installed.

For Read access no problem - just mount these as ntfs on the HOST and enable them as SHARES so the Guest OS will see these as Network drives.

Ensure host only or Bridged or NAT networking in the Virtual Machine settings is enabled. If you use Host Only networking you don't need a network card as VMWARE provides a "Virtual Network" interface between your HOST Linux system and the Guest OS.


However you usually want to WRITE to these disks.
With SUSE 10.2 it can be done easily.

1) Install FUSE and developement libraries. Ensure the release level is 2.6 or greater. On the 10.2 DVD it's OK. You might have to modprobe FUSE after install

2) obtain and install ntfs-3g

3) mount your NTFS USB disks on the Linux Host READ WRITE for example

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda7 /windows/j (The default options are RW)

add these to the samba shares in the normal way so your GUEST can access these. You'll now find you've got WRITE ACCESS to external USB drives on your Guest Windows OS.

(If you are using Linux Guests then this should still work or you can EXPORT file systems -- the main problem seems to be users wanting to access external USB drives from WINDOWS Guest VM's).

Here's the output of what I've currently got mounted on a networked laptop

Password:
greyfox:~ # mount -l
/dev/hda8 on / type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr) []
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/hda1 on /windows/c type ntfs (ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,gid=100,umask=002) []
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,uid=1000,utf8,shortn ame=lower) []
/dev/hda6 on /windows/e type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,allow_other) []
greyfox:~ #

HDA6 Windows/e is the NTFS read write windows disk - here it's a local disk for testing but it's acessible over the network via SAMBA to other Linux machines.

Now you've got external USB access with READ/WRITE capability.

I've been using this now extensively for around a week and have yet to experience any data loss or corruption on the NTFS system.

For systems earlier than 10.2 you can use the "Old method" or attach the devices directly to the GUEST.

Actually keeping the devices on the Linux Host IMO is better since you've got much better control and security over access on these drives.

Hint also for those not too familar with configuring SAMBA

If you use kde use SWAT simply by logging on localhost:901. Nice GUI for configuring SAMBA.

Also ensure any user has a SAMBA password via smbpasswd -a username. If you don't add the user with a password you won't get access to your shares.


When it's up and running properly clicking on the NETWORK BROWSING on the SUSE 10.2 desktop or Windows My network places will find / show all the available disks. (They've finally fixed the SUSE Network browsing applet. Now works perfectly without any DNS set ups etc provided you add your machines to a valid work group when setting up SAMBA.

Cheers

-K