VMware Cloud Community
Felix001
Contributor
Contributor

ESX4 USB Mapping

Im looking to purchase a USB based piece of hardware which I want to install on one of my virtual machines. The virtual machine will be linux based. Is it possible to map the pysical USB port directly to my VM machine ??

Many Thanks,

Reply
0 Kudos
7 Replies
DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Mounting USB devices to VM guests is available in 4.1. http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/VMDirectPath/USB_Setup.php

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
Reply
0 Kudos
DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

And also http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022290

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
Reply
0 Kudos
Felix001
Contributor
Contributor

Ok cool, if i upgrade to 4.1 what issues would I have with my licensing .....

Reply
0 Kudos
DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

As long as your SnS is current you should be fine. You would need to upgrade to vCenter 4.1 first which does require a 64bit OS.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_upgrade_guide.pdf

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
Reply
0 Kudos
Felix001
Contributor
Contributor

At present it isnt linked into a vcentre server. Will be eventually.

So if I upgrade it to 4.1 will I have to add a new license ??

Reply
0 Kudos
DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

The license number works for 4.0 or 4.1 so no change.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
Reply
0 Kudos
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal

Base on experience, anything that is in 4.x would share the same serial key. bare in mind that i've tried usb passthru' for tape drive and usb drive for backup and the performance was not really that good. maybe it's just me.

Reply
0 Kudos