USB, how to enable it in VirtualBox in a simple way

In the next article we are going to take a look at how we can enable USB in Virtualbox. When your data center depends on VirtualBox and you need a USB device in your virtual machines, you will realize that USB is not available or supported by default, unless you manually enable it in your Virtualbox.

If at this point you still do not know what VirtualBox is, we will say that it is a cross-platform virtualization tool that offers users the possibility of creating virtual disk drives where we will be able to install an operating system of our choice, within the one we use regularly.

VirtualBox will also allow us to run virtual machines remotely. Another of the functions it presents is that of mount ISO images as virtual CD or DVD drives or as a floppy disk. This program is a free virtualization solution from Oracle. VirtualBox can virtualize from Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 10, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, and many other versions of Gnu / Linux.

In the following lines we will see step by step how can we enable USB support in Virtualbox so that working with our virtual machines is much easier. The current version of VirtualBox 6.0 comes with support for USB 3.0. In order to take advantage of this feature we will have to install the latest available version of VirtualBox Extension Pack.

To make the article shorter, let's assume that we already have VirtualBox installed on our computer and that we already have our virtual machine (s). If you haven't done it yet, you can install Virtualbox by following The Guide that a colleague wrote a while ago.

Installing VirtualBox Extension Pack

First of all we are going to start VirtualBox. Now, to install the latest version of the Extension Pack, we just have to go to the Virtualbox Downloads page and from there we can download the file of All supported platforms, as you can see in the previous screenshot.

Once we have downloaded the file, we are going to go to our VirtualBox. In the top menu, we will click on Archive and then select the option Preferences.

In the window that will open you have to do click on the Extensions option, and then click on the + sign.

Select the downloaded VirtualBox Extension Pack file. A new window will open, from which we can start the installation as shown in the previous screenshot.

To accept the license terms that will be shown on the screen, we will have to scroll to the end of it, which will activate the button I agree to install it.

We will have to write our sudo password to allow the installation to finish.

Enabling USB access for the user

The installation of VirtualBox for Gnu / Linux creates the user group vboxusers. Any system user who is going to use USB devices in VirtualBox, must be a member of that group. A user can become a member of the vboxusers group through the GUI user / group management or by using the following command in the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T):

sudo usermod -aG vboxusers NOMBRE_DE_USUARIO

In the above command USER_NAME is the name of the user running VirtualBox. After the command is successful, log out and log back in.

Enable USB support in VirtualBox

Start VirtualBox and do right-click on the virtual machine that needs access to a USB device. Then click Configuration.

In the Configuration of the virtual machine, select the option called USB to view available USB devices. Click on the + sign to add a new device.

After adding the USB device, start the virtual machine to access the data on the USB device.

If you need to enable more USB devices, please go back to Configuration -> USB and add the necessary devices.