singh763173 Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Hi all - in my quest to remove as much as hardware in my network as much as possible I have gone and virtualised my windows iTunes box to ESXi Now the issue is as follows - I CANT PASS MY USB THROUGH TO THE GUEST :| I have tested with standard usb drives and it works but not the one that matters most :| Has anyone had this before? I am searching google and cant find anything as of yet which is upsetting :( Cheers guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 (edited) Does the USB drive require USB 2.0? Make sure you have the VM setup to automatically detect USB devices and set for USB 2.0. If not, you can manually switch it from the host to the guest OS on the fly(at least in workstation you can, not sure on ESXi though, never used it at home). Is there anything special or unique to the drive in question? What file system was it formatted with and is it damaged in any way that it can't be read? What happens when mounted in a real, physical machine vs the VM? Edited January 4, 2012 by digip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
singh763173 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 Ah sorry i forgot to mention - its my iPhone that I am trying to connect to the W7 Guest! (will also need to attach my iPad also) It doesnt need to be USB2 as I already have a USB over Cat5 extender which slows the speeds down but works on the physically machine that was virtualised. The usb drive i used as a test that did go over was a standard usb2 16gb flash drive. The phone is getting power as its charging with the USB cable but the host isnt showing it up as a device that can be transferred to the VM. I SSH'd into the server and ran dmesg and the phone does show up as an Apple iPhone but I still consider myself a linux noob and cant tell whether it has registered the drivers or not. I feel this may be the issue, drivers may need to be installed but I really dont know where to begin, let alone if i am right :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Linux probably doesn't see it as a removable disk maybe. I would say if you can unmount it form the host via linux, then it might pop up in the VM and say something like "installing new device" or such. It might be auto-mounting it in the linux host and not releasing it to the VM. Its odd though, that it does a pass through for the regular thumb drive to show up in the VM, but the iphone only seems to stay on the host and not pass through to the VM. Try these steps Hi, You can actually do this in 4.1 Right click on your VM -> Edit Settings and add a USB controller and Map that. If your VMs are running on Windows 2008 then you can see new Device connected popup.. else you can just rescan devices using device manager. For windows 2003 you might require a reboot.. Also there were some known issued with the USB controller mapping on 4.1, so also make sure that you have installed Updates 1 and 2.. found on this page: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1865806 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
singh763173 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 The controller is added as default on all VMs - the option to add a USB device is there but only enabled when a device which is available for pass through is connected which is what I've tried with the above results. Also, I'm running ESXi 5 - I havent done any updates as I didnt see any available from the site when downloading the site. Also - with regards to unmounting - how would I go about doing that? But the question then is, doesnt it needed to be mounted to be able to see it to enable the pass through? I cant enable to the pass through currently because its not showing in vSphere but dmesg via ssh shows it connected. This is so odd! :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hexophrenic Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 (edited) Buy a network enabled USB-hub (http://www.digi.com/products/usb/anywhereusb#models), they are not too expensive or difficult to find. Alternatively, sync wirelessly if you can. USB pass-through was really added mostly for usb storage and dongles. Edited for a product that is known to be ESX compatible. Edited January 4, 2012 by hexophrenic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
singh763173 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 (edited) iTunes WiFi-Sync is bit of a fail. Only ever works once after its been sync'd with the cable then repeat - but thats another matter lol I was lookin at this hub as well as the Digi AnywhereUSB and have even emailed Digi to confirm that it will work. Reason why I want to make sure it works before coughing up the cash is because having never used the device, I would assume that it works by assigning an IP address to the device connected to each port - once assigned you can then add your storage media, printers etc which is great but how will it work with iPhones if that is the case? Do you use this particular device yourself? *edit* http://www.digi.com/products/usb/anywhereusb#overview This is the device from Digi (5 port) Edited January 4, 2012 by singh763173 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hexophrenic Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I have used many of the Digis myself, but yes, they are more expensive than some others. iTunes, at least in windows, sucks quite badly. Good luck with it. And yes, wirelessly is not much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Weird. I needed iTunes when I setup my iPad, and because I don't want that crap on my machine I installed iTunes in an XP vm to do the setup. The iPad passed through to the VM with no issues for me, but maybe thats because my host OS is windows 7 and not linux based. Not sure if there is something differing in Linux, or if its an ESXi thing. What is the guest OS you are trying to connect it to, and did you install vmtools in the VM as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
singh763173 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 @hex - Great! Do you by chance know if the iPhone is passed through using the devices properly? i.e will I be able to sync with it with the hub? If possible could you demo it? @digip - I can pass through using Workstation on a W7 Host but not with ESXi - I think its a an issue with just ESXi rather than vmware as a whole. The guest is also a W7 box but the same happens with a XP guest, both with vmtools installed. I cant even bloody pass it through to Linux boxes either! lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hexophrenic Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Weird. I needed iTunes when I setup my iPad, and because I don't want that crap on my machine I installed iTunes in an XP vm to do the setup. The iPad passed through to the VM with no issues for me, but maybe thats because my host OS is windows 7 and not linux based. Not sure if there is something differing in Linux, or if its an ESXi thing. What is the guest OS you are trying to connect it to, and did you install vmtools in the VM as well? USB Passthrough in ESXi is completely different. Yes, in the workstation products it works fairly well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hexophrenic Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 @hex - Great! Do you by chance know if the iPhone is passed through using the devices properly? i.e will I be able to sync with it with the hub? If possible could you demo it? @digip - I can pass through using Workstation on a W7 Host but not with ESXi - I think its a an issue with just ESXi rather than vmware as a whole. The guest is also a W7 box but the same happens with a XP guest, both with vmtools installed. I cant even bloody pass it through to Linux boxes either! lol Not really an opportunity to demo it as we do not use iTunes in our infrastructure. I just run VMWare Workstation at home, mostly due to this limitation and pure laziness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 (edited) Read this, maybe shed some light but says it should work with the usb passthrough on autoconnect - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_vm_admin_guide.pdf search for "iphone" edit: also mor einfo on what Hex suggested - http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1015 so looks liek the AnywhereUSB does work for what you are having isuses with. Edited January 4, 2012 by digip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
singh763173 Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 @hex - Ah I see! - not a problem, I think Im going to have to go down the network hub route and hope for the best @digip - thanks for the links, I think I'm going to purchase the AnywhereUSB, theres one on ebay atm. As for AutoConnect, ESXi needs to see it before it can be set to automatically pass - I would have thought that it would have made sense to allow the use of hardware identifiers filters in case of situations like this. Almost like MAC address filtering in Windows Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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