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MNANCE152
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ESX Server Guests and Local USB devices

Is it possible with ESX Server 3.5 to remotely connect to a Guest OS and load a USB device such as a card reader attached to your laptop? How does this work if it is possible?

Is there an appliance that can be installed for smart card reader's, biometric readears, etc. ??

To summarize how does ESX allow a remote user to plug in a usb device locally and have ESX assign it to the desired vmware team instance??

Thanks and sorry for being so green!

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vmroyale
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Green is trendy now Kyle - get with the program!

MNANCE152 - Does this solution sound workable, or do you think you will have to go another route? I would be interested to hear what you ultimately come up with, if you don't mind posting it back here.

Good Luck!

Brian Atkinson | vExpert | VMTN Moderator | Author of "VCP5-DCV VMware Certified Professional-Data Center Virtualization on vSphere 5.5 Study Guide: VCP-550" | @vmroyale | http://vmroyale.com

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vmroyale
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Hello and welcome to the forums.

I'm not sure how well this would suit your needs, but there are USB over IP devices that work very well with virtual machines. I have used the Digi AnywhereUSB, but there are others available as well. The idea would be to put this device where your user(s) will be located, and then Digi's software (installed in the virtual machine) will connect to it over IP. Again, since you are talking biometrics and smart cards, this may not be the best application, but thought I would throw it out there.

Good Luck!

Brian Atkinson | vExpert | VMTN Moderator | Author of "VCP5-DCV VMware Certified Professional-Data Center Virtualization on vSphere 5.5 Study Guide: VCP-550" | @vmroyale | http://vmroyale.com
khughes
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Like vmroyale stated if you want to attach a USB device to an ESX host you will need to plug it into some sort of USB-over-IP device. Some devices do transfer over RDP so if you remotely connect to the guest OS using RDP (windows) you an have devices on your laptop attach to the guest OS that way.

And no worries about being too green, vmroyale has been doing this for a year and he still has his origional shade of green to all this stuff Smiley Wink j/k Brian :smileygrin:

  • Kyle

-- Kyle "RParker wrote: I guess I was wrong, everything CAN be virtualized "
vmroyale
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Green is trendy now Kyle - get with the program!

MNANCE152 - Does this solution sound workable, or do you think you will have to go another route? I would be interested to hear what you ultimately come up with, if you don't mind posting it back here.

Good Luck!

Brian Atkinson | vExpert | VMTN Moderator | Author of "VCP5-DCV VMware Certified Professional-Data Center Virtualization on vSphere 5.5 Study Guide: VCP-550" | @vmroyale | http://vmroyale.com
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MNANCE152
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Hey guys, thanks for posting that information. I will look into the DigiAnywhere USB solution. I was hoping that ESX would natively support remote USB devices. Once I get ESX installed, I will know more.

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bsdnazz
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We're using a DigiAnywere USB box for our virutalised Blackberry Enterprise server. We use it to connect up Blackberrys to BES to provision them.

We also have a Digi Serial over TCP/IP box we use to connect a virtualised Zetafax server to a couple of external modems.

Guy Dawson
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