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Asked: 2013-11-03 10:33:21 +0800 CST

How to give USB access to VirtualBox when non-root

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I'm a member of vboxusers group. I installed the extension pack. When running VirtualBox as non-root, USB devices are visible but grayed-out. When running VirtualBox as root then it works fine.

How to add access to USB devices when running virtualbox as non-root?

OS: Lubuntu 12.04, VirtualBox 4.3.2r90405 with extension pack.

usb

2 Answers

  1. Okay, what worked for me was to use synaptic to completely uninstall (including configuration files) the commercial virtual-box 4.3 and install the virtualbox (open source edition). I then had to uncheck usb2 support, but my devices were then found (not grayed out) and I didn't need to use root either.

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  2. I am re-posting the solution that worked for me:

    After numerous searching I've concluded with the help of this wiki to the below script that fixed the problem:

    #!/bin/bash

#
# Heavily inspired by https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/wiki/VirtualBox-udev-integration
#

vbox_usbnode_path=$(find / -name VBoxCreateUSBNode.sh 2> /dev/null | head -n 1)
if [[ -z $vbox_usbnode_path ]]; then
    echo Warning: VBoxCreateUSBNode.sh file has not been found.
    exit 1
fi

chmod 755 $vbox_usbnode_path
chown root:root $vbox_usbnode_path

vboxusers_gid=$(getent group vboxusers | awk -F: '{printf "%d\n", $3}')

vbox_rules="SUBSYSTEM==\"usb_device\", ACTION==\"add\", RUN+=\"$vbox_usbnode_path \$major \$minor \$attr{bDeviceClass} $vboxusers_gid\"
SUBSYSTEM==\"usb\", ACTION==\"add\", ENV{DEVTYPE}==\"usb_device\", RUN+=\"$vbox_usbnode_path \$major \$minor \$attr{bDeviceClass} $vboxusers_gid\"
SUBSYSTEM==\"usb_device\", ACTION==\"remove\", RUN+=\"$vbox_usbnode_path --remove \$major \$minor\"
SUBSYSTEM==\"usb\", ACTION==\"remove\", ENV{DEVTYPE}==\"usb_device\", RUN+=\"$vbox_usbnode_path --remove \$major \$minor\""

echo "$vbox_rules" > /etc/udev/rules.d/virtualbox.rules
rm -f /etc/udev/rules.d/*-virtualbox.rules
udevadm control --reload
adduser `logname` vboxusers

echo All actions succeeded.
echo Log out and log in to see if the issue go fixed.

    Be sure to have VM VirtualBox Extension Pack installed and at least USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller enabled at VM's USB settings.

    After these, run the above script with sudo.

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