virtualbox wont show USB ports in the guest OS

[Derek Broughton]

Joep L. Blom wrote:

> I have the distinct feeling that the problem is in the permissions as I
> but I can't find out which are not set. I even tried to set the
> /proc/bus/usb directory chain to 777 (which is definitively NOT a good
> idea) but it didn't work.

Why is it not a good idea?  Really, a USB device is almost always under 
physical user control, so allowing world access on a single user system is 
insignificant.  However - I don't see any evidence that ubuntu is using 
/proc/bus/usb these days. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what it _is_ using.

> Virtualbox starts up normally and the Devices tab shows the USB-ports
> but they are greyed out. In the vbox manager the USB ports are set. Also
> the local user - who starts virtualbox - is subscribed to the group
> vboxusers as recommended in the manual.

I can confirm I have the same problem - I attached my webcam in the vbox 
manager, and it shows up in the XP guest, but greyed out and can't be 
activated.

> The manual also says that in 'modern hosts' (I have a brand new AMD
> Phantom  II system) 

I'm pretty sure that means "modern host OSes", not modern hardware.

> I don't want to start virtual box from a root account.

No, you don't :-)  The results can be very odd...
-- 
derek