USB license keys and VDI

[mreferre]

Not sure if anyone of you on this board has ever been facing the challenge of "exporting" into a remote XP guest OS (accessed via RDP) a USB license key installed locally.

From a I would be pretty flexible and I could allow to have from the thinnest of the thin clients available all the way to a standard PC with a standard XP image. The problem I have right now is that, from this client device (whatever that be) I need to open an RDP session into an XP guest on VMware which will run an application that (unfortunately) requires and check the presence of local a USB license key.

While I would ideally like not to have any additional device on the desk I understand that I could have "IP-enabled USB devices" that, through an appropriate software installed into any XP guest could be mapped and transparently being considered local USB devices.

The one thing important to notice is that this USB key doesn't show up as a regular "removable disk" otherwise RDP would have been able to map it into the remote session, no problem.

So in summary, if you have heard/seen/thought of any solution for a similar scenario please let me know. As I said it would be nice if there is a solution that doesn't require any additional hardware on the desk (this would be my preferred) but if you have heard/seen/thought of other solutions that might work which requires additional hardware .... that would be good as well.

Thanks.

Massimo.

[Sticky]

Hi Massimo,

I am just in the process of testing a product for a customer solution. They have a Phone System they would like to virtualize but it requires access to a USB license dongle. Below is the solution that we are going to test to resolve the issue. Let me know if it works for you.

http://www.fabulatech.com/usbnet-action.html?gclid=CILaorO7-YgCFSVGQQodDl6sWw

Golden

[mreferre]

Cool.

If I understand correctly this falls into the category of solutions which require the additional hw to be seamlessly connected via software to any XP right ?

That is ok .... as I said not my favourite but it will work.

BTW while posting this I have received additional input from other folks and one was particularly interesting:

http://www.software-key.org/haspsbs.html

I still have to look into that but it looks like this kind of "dump" your real key and present it into a pure software manner within your XP guest. If I got it right you dump the key on a file which is going to be on the XP file system and, throgh their software, you can present the file to XP as if it was the real dongle.

If that is what it does it's (very) interesting. I can see ISV's getting pretty nervous about this because you could very easily crack the softwware but we are all good guys ..... aren't we ? After all those ISV's that continue to use this archaic solutions sort of deserve to be worried .... so they can keep up to date.

Thoughts ?

Thanks again.

Massimo.

[mreferre]

Golden,

after looking into this it appears to me that this is "only" a software that allows you to share a USB device from an XP system. So the idea is that you plug the USB key into an XP client, you load the software and you share the key with another XP on the network. So in my own scenario I would need to load a regular XP on my client device, load this sharing software, open an RDP connection to my VDI infrastructure and from within my remote XP guests map my local USB key through pointing to my client IP address.

Is that how this is supposed to work ?

If that is the case, while I see the benefits of doing this in a desktop workgroup where you might want to share a limited number of these keys I think that for a pure VDI solution it might be more effective to use simple IP enabled USB hardware device that you can map similarly as I have discussed above but without the burden of having the key plugged into a "complex to manage" XP Desktop with a software to share it.

So if you think about it it would be a sort of little hardware appliance that does in fact what the PCXPthis sharing software do.

Or am I missing something ?

Thanks again.

[Sticky]

I think you may have even lost me. I submitted this solution, and explaining how I intended to use it. I thought you might find it helpfull. For our application I am trying to avoid buying an additional device. If I remebmer correctly you metioned connecting to a hosted desktop from a full XP machine. If that is the case there is no need to have a seperate device when the box has everything you need. I admit that this is more of a one to one solution. But I though t it was cool technology to point out that might help.

Golden

Message was edited by:

Sticky

[mreferre]

Golden,

don't get me wrong. I was not trying to say that this solution was not good nor I was trying to say it won't fit your own scenario. Not at all.

Perhaps I was "thinking loudly" ......

As a matter of fact I will be using a Desktop as the client device (for a number of reasons I won't articulate on) even though I would rather loading a simple streamlined Thin Client OS rather than a full fledged XP (although I can load a full fledged XP if I really need to do that).

More generally the point I was trying to make was that if I had to choose between an XP client where to initiate the RDP session and share the USB key and a thin client (zero admin) device where to start my RDP session + a small hardware appliance (zero admin) as I have discussed above....... I would ideally go for the second option.

This doesn't mean I am suggesting this for your scenario .. it was more or less a general statement (thinking loudly).

Thanks again for your link. This is certainly something I will try to test.

Thanks. Massimo.

[Sticky]

I agree with you that a thin client is the way to go. It would of course be nice if ESX just supported USB and we left it to RDP or ICA to forward along the USB stuff. Until then, I wonder if it would be possible to have a thin client with the ability to do smart USB over TCP/IP. So when I connect client "A" to hosted desktop "B" it just knows to map the USB device to my thin clients IP.

ah....to dream...

[davlloyd]

Provision networks provide USB-IT which they have integrated into there VDI broker solution. Issue with this is that you are bound to a Windows XPe thin client (and the cost and management that goes with it). This solution though is not any USB device as it has a stated list of supported devices.

There is a another solution in the works and could be available in the next couple of months. This will allow specific non windows thin client(s) to connect USB devices over the network between a Virtual Guest and a thin client. As with the Fabula solution it is not bound by the RDP session. As it seems with a lot of options with VDI at the moment though it is still in the wait and see section.

[mreferre]

OK so eventually we have had this narrowed down this way.

The "client device" is going to be a regular PC with a ThinClientOS image (check at : http://www.2x.com/thinclientserver/). So basically we PXE boot a thin client image on the PC and make it appear as a thin client.

As per the dongle we decided to go with the IP/USB hub ..... We have tested these two:

http://www.digi.com/products/usb/anywhereusb.jsp

http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/external-device-servers/ubox.html

Both pretty much work fine with their strenghts and disadvantages. So the Lantronix device seems to be good ..... but its limitation is that it looks like that the connection from the XP vm to the USB dongle is not consistent across reboots (so the end user would need to be trained to connect to it).

The Digi device on the other hand is good too but its limitation is that I can't share a 5 USB ports device among 5 vm's (as I would need) but once a vm connects to the device it has exclusive usage of the 5 ports. Not a very cost effective thing if you need to deal with 20 USB dongles.......

If you could thing of anything else ...... say a way you know to have persistent connections to the Lantronix device across reboots, or another 3rd party IP-USB device with a single USB port so sharing is not an issue ........ or ..... whatever.

Thanks. Massimo.

[ArnimS]

Massimo,

you can configure to reconnect the USB devices on the Lantronix UBox.

We use these devices in serveral locations in XP VMs hosted by ESX 2.x and VMWare Server. Works always like a charm...

Greetings

[mreferre]

you can configure to reconnect the USB devices on the Lantronix UBox.

Arnims ..... thanks. That sounds like what I need to do ....

Can you be a bit more specific on how to do that ? I can't really see this config option from the UI ....... or do you use any command line script to do that (which would be ok too) ?

Thanks a lot ... you are saving my life ...

Massimo.

[ArnimS]

Thanks a lot ... you are saving my life ...

Well, I'll try my very best ...

In the UBOX Settings choose the Tab "Servers" and select your server.

Chose "Edit Server" and goto "USB Device Configuration".

Choose your USB device and "Edit" resp. "Add".

Set "Share Mode" to "Dedicated" and specify the Clientname.

After that, the client will auto-connect to the USB device you have specified whenever the USB helper program is launched (is by default, as you have installed the client).

We use this with Software USB-dongles from Aladdin and WiBu-Key, SmartCardreader (GemPlus comp.), USB Cradles for Windows Mobile powered devices and Active Sync as well as USB Fingerprint readers in this matter.

We noticed only one issue with a USB CD-Rom drive and a copy-protected CD Media, as the program was not able to recognise the Media as the original CD. We think, that the UBOX is optimised for CD-Drives und supresses the media-errors of the copy-protection to the driver...

Good luck for your needs.

Arnim

[mreferre]

Arnim,

thanks a lot. I will try to give it a try and let you know how this works.

Thanks again.

Massimo.

P.S. the other issue with this device is that this is not RoHS compliant so the distributor told us they won't be able to sell us the quantity we need before the new RoHS compliant version hits the streets (few weeks/months). Perhaps I will have to find them on e-bay if everything goes well.....

[ArnimS]

Massimo,

I know about the ROHS problems with the "old UBOX".

Our distributor in Germany has sent us an agreement what we signed to buy the non ROHS compl. UBOXes.

Maybe you can handle it the same way...

Good luck.

Arnim

Message was edited by:

ArnimS

[mreferre]

Arnim,

it turned out that the reason for which we haven't touched that panel is because it is password protected on the device the distributor handed over me for the test ......

I am still trying to figure out with them who put that password in (I don't see any Lantronix default password in the docs) or alternatively how to reset it to factory defaults.

I was just wondering if you have any clue about how to reset it from an hardware perspective because my feeling is that this is going to take forever with them .....

Thanks. Massimo.

[ArnimS]

Massimo,

look at http://www.lantronix.com/pdf/UBox_UG.pdf at page 55 to reset the box.

Hope that will help you.

Arnim

[mreferre]

Arnim,

effectively everything was in that manual. Both the "auto-connect" as well as the "how do I hard reset the box".

At this point I am unsure whether I should say that 1) I did not read the manual, or 2) I read it but didn't find those info. Either way I am not looking smart to the people reading this thread so I will leave it as it is ..... (it was probably a mix of 1) and 2) ). I guess I need some vacation......

Having this said I managed to reset the box as well as to configure auto-connect. Thanks a lot ..... especially for the patient.....

Thanks. Massimo.

[TomHowarth]

Massimo,

Don't be so hard on your self, I can happen to all of us, even me :smileygrin: lol

[mreferre]

[HKokko]

Thanks a lot for the pointers.

I'm now trying to use a Lantronix UBox (UBX4100) for a similar scenario, but for one or another reason my virtual machines can't seem to communicate with the dongle.

We're talking about Win2003 SP1 VM on ESX 3. I also tried this with WinXP as the quest OS, but exactly the same seems to apply there:

The virtual machine seems to communicate perfectly with the UBox, but if I try to connect to a USB device, it gets mapped in Device Manager with an alert. Device status says "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"

I tried also a simple USB flash memory stick, with exactly the same result. If I try to communicate with the same UBox from my PC (WinXP), I can access these same USB devices just as smoothly as they were connected to a local USB port.

I'm using the latest software package from the Lantronix web site. The firmware has been upgraded. I've tried removing & reinstalling the UBox drivers, but no luck so far.

Any suggestions?