Hardware support in Virtualization

[alg7_munif]

I just wanna ask about the hardware that will be detected in the virtual OS. Will the OS detect a hardware that is plugged into the USB port like a pendrive or printer? Can I use a printer in the virtual OS? Thanks.

 

[sabregen]

AFAIK (and my intimate knowledge doesn't include Server 2k8, as of yet) the only virtualization products that support USB from host to VM passthrough (which is what you're asking about) are hosted, or desktop virtualization solutions. To my knowledge, there's no baremetal hypervisors that support this functionality.

If you plug in a thumbdrive under VMWare Workstation (for instace) then the VM will see the thumbdrive, but only if you tell the VM that it can. I cannot personally try it with a printer, as I have no USB printers.

 

[axan]

yes usb devices will work, thumbdrives, printers, scanners etc but only on vmware workstation, there is no usb support for esx or esxi. If you need to use usb on vmware esx you can use usb over ethernet gizmo to make it work.

 

[xxEIEIOxx]

VMware and VirtualBox both support USB, VirtualPC does not. VirtualBox probably does it best.

 

[lopoetve]

AFAIK (and my intimate knowledge doesn't include Server 2k8, as of yet) the only virtualization products that support USB from host to VM passthrough (which is what you're asking about) are hosted, or desktop virtualization solutions. To my knowledge, there's no baremetal hypervisors that support this functionality.

If you plug in a thumbdrive under VMWare Workstation (for instace) then the VM will see the thumbdrive, but only if you tell the VM that it can. I cannot personally try it with a printer, as I have no USB printers.

There are ways to. The next generation of virtual hardware will support this, it just depends on if your hypervisor will or will not.