[Xen-users] How best to connect USB devices to a DOMU

[Derek <xen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks,

Interested in opinions on the best way to do this, and especially
tales of success or failure so I don't have to repeat someone else's
mistake.

I want a DomU (winxp, hvm) to be able to access a few select USB
devices.  No other DomU or Dom0 will need to share them.  And, I
should point out that some of these are devices for which a Linux
driver is either unavailable or unsuited for my purposes, so I really
do need to run the Windows driver and have it "think" it's talking
direct to the USB.

The sort of devices I am talking about include:  A bluetooth adaptor,
an ipod, an ipaq PDA, and an Actiontek "Internet Phone Wizard".

Posibilities that I have considered:

1.  Use USB passthrough, so DomU sees a virtualized device.  I've
tried this, using the qemu "usb_add device" command.  No luck, so far.
My DomU freezes when I try it, and I don't know why.  Also, googling
around, I've yet to see any success story with this method, so I don't
think it works under Xen.

2.  Use PCI passthrough, so DomU sees an entire PCI device.  In this
case, the PCI device would be a USB adaptor, and thus WinXP will see
all devices and hubs under that adaptor.  I have yet to try this
method, wondering if anyone has done so with success?

3.  Using USB-over-IP or some similar network tunneling.  So far I've
found one software-only product for this
(http://www.usb-over-network.com/) and three hardware products
(http://www.belkin.com/networkusbhub/ &
http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/facet.jspx?k=E5813A &
http://www.digi.com/products/usb/anywhereusb.jsp).  I can't use the
software-only product, because it requires a windows computer as host,
with access to the native USB hardware.  I have no such computer
available.  The hardware products seem promising, but the Agilent and
Digi ones are very expensive, and the Belkin one is not yet available,
as far as I can tell.

Anyway, if any folks on this list have solved this problem in any of
the above ways -- or others I haven't thought of -- please share the
details with me.

Many thanks,
Derek.

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