Ubuntu in Sun Virtual Box - what a pain

Tuvoc · 12 Aug 2009 at 08:48

On one machine I did a proper dual boot install, and it is working brilliantly. On that box I may end up running Linux exclusively, I'm that impressed with Unbuntu 9.04

However - on another machine I installed KUbuntu in a Sun Virtual Box virtual machine. Forget for the moment about the postage stamp sized screen that I can't seem to do anything about, I need to get some user documents out of it. Yet, the Linux virtual machine does not recognise any USB flash drives that I plug in, and can't see the Windows drives either. So I'm stuck. Is there an easy solution to this ? I'd rather go the USB stick route if possible as I'm pleased that this virtual machine can't see the windows drives, better security.

z0mbi3 · 12 Aug 2009 at 08:54

Have you actually enabled the USB drive you want to use for that VM in Virtualbox? I can't recall where the option is but it is there.

Also, I think you can install the guest additions on Ubuntu. That'll solve your resolution issues.

Tuvoc · 12 Aug 2009 at 09:01

In virtual box itself, yes I have enabled that USB drive

Tuvoc · 14 Aug 2009 at 22:39

The Guest additions solved the display issue :-)

USB is still unresolved, when I choose Device, USb Devices, and the flash drive, it gives an error message that the drive "is busy with a previous request". Most frustrating.. I've googled this and I'm not alone with this problem, but as yet I haven't found anyone who had a solution

.walls · 14 Aug 2009 at 23:19

Tuvoc said:
The Guest additions solved the display issue

USB is still unresolved, when I choose Device, USb Devices, and the flash drive, it gives an error message that the drive "is busy with a previous request". Most frustrating.. I've googled this and I'm not alone with this problem, but as yet I haven't found anyone who had a solution

do you have the drive mounted in the host?

Tuvoc · 14 Aug 2009 at 23:23

It works in Vista, yes, but I did the safely remove hardware thing and that makes no difference

.walls · 14 Aug 2009 at 23:31

Ah sorry - didn't read the first post properly!

Tuvoc · 15 Aug 2009 at 12:20

Finally got the USB drive going:

1. added a new user group usb
2. added my name into that
3. added the following line to /etc/fstab
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=664 0 0

where 1001 is the ID of the usb user group

I can't believe what a huge problem this has been. Running in a virtual machine is not all it is cracked up to be, and I'm not certain Sun Virtual Box is that great either

zinc · 16 Aug 2009 at 08:26

Never had one single problem myself with virtual box. In terms of ease of use it's the best out there. Never had any problems with USB at all with fedora, opensuse and xp in the vm, it even detects and syncs my iPhone

Although it did take me ages to find out that I needed to plug in the device, unmount it in the host then right click and enable it on the USB icon in the right corner of the VM

.walls · 16 Aug 2009 at 21:05

Tuvoc said:
Finally got the USB drive going:

1. added a new user group usb
2. added my name into that
3. added the following line to /etc/fstab
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=664 0 0

where 1001 is the ID of the usb user group

Ah - so you did RTFM then? (it's in the documentation under "USB Not Working").

Also - VBox get my vote (as a type 2 hypervisor), and I only work with virtualisation for a living

Tuvoc · 16 Aug 2009 at 21:18

.walls said:
Ah - so you did RTFM then? (it's in the documentation under "USB Not Working").

Yes indeed, that is where I found it !!

Seems stupid to have to do that though - when you do a proper Ubuntu install, USB support works out of the box, straight away, no need to do anything. Installing in a virtual machine should be no different, yet it is, and that is what I'd call clunky and unacceptable. Is it Ubuntu's fault, or Sun's fault, I don't know.

.walls said:
Also - VBox get my vote (as a type 2 hypervisor), and I only work with virtualisation for a living

It was certainly miles better once I installed the guest additions, that is for sure. But that USB issue just says to me, virtualisation is not all it is cracked up to be.

.walls · 16 Aug 2009 at 21:47

Tuvoc said:
Is it Ubuntu's fault, or Sun's fault

The fault lies with whoever made the package. It's certainly not Sun's fault, as they have no control over how the host OS handles the requests that the virtual OS makes. Whoever made the package should have had the install check for the relevant line in fstab and if it didn't exist, create it. Saying that though - most distros don't bother and either expect you to either find it out yourself (like apt) or notify you with some console output when you install it (like pacman).

But that USB issue just says to me, virtualisation is not all it is cracked up to be.

Heh - could be worse. Most type 1 hypervisors (bare metal) don't have USB support at all, and they're usually very much paid for (have a look at the prices of VMware ESX...), instead - if you need to access a USB devices (such as proprietary hardware lock dongles for software), then you need to get something like USBAnywhere.

Anyway... to answer the question - it depends on what you mean by "all it is cracked up to be". At home, I use ESX4 (vSphere) on my server to host 6 guests (without USB support - but that's fine, I don't need that on them) and I host a single guest on my desktop in VB (which does need USB support) and it does exactly what I need them to do. At work, I have about 50ish ESX servers which host something in the region of 700 guest servers. If you look at it from a consolidation point of view (needing less hardware to run more servers), then yes - it really is all it's cracked up to be. Once you start adding the benefits of things like DRS/HA, etc then it becomes even more "all that". For example - if an ESX host goes down (taking say 20 -30 production servers with it), HA will kick in and automatically power up those guests on another server, thus minimising downtime. DRS works as a load balancer between the ESX hosts - so if one physical box is getting its CPUs hammered, then some of the guests will be automagically moved - on the fly whilst the guest OS is still running - to another, less utilised host. This stuff has been around for quite some time now in the enterprise, but I really can't see any of it washing down to consumer level ever.

zinc · 16 Aug 2009 at 22:20

Virtual Box's manual is great, full of useful stuff. Best feature I found in it was VBoxManager - it allows you to clone then export a virtual machine for backup etc. Then you can go to another machine and do a simple import and it's exactly the way you left it on the other machine