Is there a way to forward USB devices into a VM so that the VM when accessed through RDP has access to certificates stored in smart cards / usb (i.e. digitally sign documents within the VM); can print files stored in the VM on local USB printers or access files in a USB memory stick / drive mounted on the thin client?
If so; is there a way doing this with XCP-NG used as the underlying virtualization platform?
Had a similar need, found it easier to setup a VM with samba server with an open share when I need to do a quick and dirty file transfer.
Hello Guys
You can do a usb passthrough from server. LInik.
You can’t do it form xen orchestra. I don’t now if the new version add this feature.
I used this method for a usb-key for a program.
I hope this help you
Good luck
Regards
Here is an observation I made many weeks ago about USB during an RDP session.
I was trying to get Avid Media Composer to run on a remote workstation, this workstation had a USB dongle to license the software. It would not see the dongle when I RDP into the workstation.
What I didn’t try was to stick a spare dongle into my laptop and try launching the software again. But I think it would take the dongle in the laptop for licensing the application. I may try it next week.
Passing through from the server to VMs is simple and effective when there are only a few USB connections you might want to passthrough; especially if these connections are supposed to be kind of permanent.
What about the case when in a company of 20 or more employees where each one of them has his own personal USB token (mainly used for for digital signatures) and they want to use them in their personal VM workstation? So I guess in such a case virtualizing workstations is not that effective.
I have been thinking of moving to VM infrastructure (mainly to implement VM workstationing) for quite some time now; but the only thing that stops me from doing that it is the need to use local USB devices like printers (though that is something that someone can overcome by replacing them with network ones) and USB tokens.
BTW thank you all for the replies.
Not sure I understand
Are you trying to pass a local USB dongle to a remote system that is a VM
or
Have the USB dongle connected to the server, passed through to a VM that is accessed remotely?
I don’t think the first will work. RDP will pass USB devices with a file system on but not sure about software dongles (unless they count as smart cards?).
As far as I can see, the second one would work as @facuq240 said but you might need to do one VM per employee and use a big USB hub to connect all the devices.
I just re-read your post.
Run mstsc, show options (bottom left), local resources tab, more button in the “local devices and resources” box. Is that what you need?