Using USB in Virtual Box

I think some of you already know about virtual box. it in short is a virtual desktop computer .... inside your computer!!
by installing virtualbox you can install ubuntu inside windows, windows inside ubuntu, ubuntu inside ubuntu and what not!!

Anyway, considering that you already have virtual box, lets move to the main issue.

Assumptions:
==========
-You are in ubuntu
-You are using VirtualBox
-You installed Virtual Box guest additions inside Virtual box
-You enabled USB Controller and USB controller 2.0
-You know what is host OS and guest OS. (if you don't, lets assume -> you have windows inside Ubuntu. Then ubuntu is the host OS and Windows is the guest OS)

Like this:



Now, it seems that your virtual box can detect your USB drives, but the devices are grayed out!! that means, it knows that the USB devices(eg. USB pendrive) is there, but it for some reason can't get access to it.

Now, I am here to show you the way

Making the USB work:
-Go to system > Administration > Users And groups
-Click on manage groups , from the list, find "vboxusers".



Select it and go to properties, you will see that your username is there, along with groupID
Note the groupid, and make sure that you tick marked your username.



now, close it and go to terminal
type

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Add the following lines at the end of file, add a new line if necessary.
(the line starting with # is a comment)

Code:


# For USB access with Virtualbox
none   /proc/bus/usb   usbfs   devgid=XXX,devmode=664   0   0


replace the XXX with your groupid, in my case it is 124.
Now, reboot your system.
CAUTION :
There might be an error during start up saying it is having trouble mounting /proc/usb or something like that.
Do not worry about it. Press S to skip.
I commented out the part so it looks like this now:

Code:


# For USB access with Virtualbox
#none   /proc/bus/usb   usbfs   devgid=124,devmode=664   0   0


Anyway, if commenting it out stops your usb detection, then uncomment it again :p

How to use USB After all these setup??

That's easy
Start virtual Box, then go to devices > USB devices.
tick mark the USB device you want to use.

WARNING!!
When you enable a USB device in guest OS, it will probably become unavailable in host OS. So, think carefully. Don't enable mouse in guest OS, for example.


Credentials:
I actually came to know about this from here