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

[Derek <xen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

Following up on my earlier question to this mail list.  Not sure if
anyone else is interrested, but just in case.  I wanted a way to
access USB peripherals from my Windows DomU, using their native
windows drivers.

After some some unsuccessful experimenting with USB passthrough, PCI
passthrough, etc.  I bought the Belkin USB networked hub
(http://www.belkin.com/networkusbhub/).  Although the Belkin web site
says it's not yet available, it is.  I paid $99 at Circuit City.

I put the hub on my ethernet, pulled up a WinXP domU on my Xen
machine, and installed the Belkin driver software from the CD.  Works
great.  Now I can plug my Ipod, Ipaq, etc., into the hub, and they
appear like magic in the domU windows environment.

I have not yet tried all of my USB peripherals on it, but the ones
I've tried so far work flawlessly.

Derek.


On 6/23/07, Derek <xen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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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