USB Devices CAN (Finally) Be Mounted in Workstation 11 VBox or KVM - Great Work!

Support
1

Considering that I was the one who bitched the loudest, and the longest, concerning Workstation 11’s inability to mount USB devices, it is only appropriate I congratulate Patrick for fixing this very significant issue in (the recently released) Workstation 11 stable.

While Workstation 11 was still in testing, I had noted the inability to mount USB as one Whonix’s three most significant shortcomings in this post:

USB devices were not able to be mounted in Workstation 11 testing, whether running under VBox, or KVM.

However, if you are now running a completely updated Workstation 11, in fact, USB devices are recognized by the kernel, and can be mounted, as root. I have tested USB mounting for Workstation 11 running as a Guest under both VBox and KVM, and I know USB mounting is working correctly under either hypervisor.

I don’t know which Jessie package, or set of packages, or config tweaks, were added to allow USB recognition and mounting, but it is nice to know that Patrick is listening, and responding!

This USB mounting capability resolves the most important (by far) of my three noted Workstation shortcomings. The other two issues; dolphin’s display is an issue I can live with/work around, and providing an encrypted Workstation, by default, is an issue Patrick and I have already beaten to death! 8)

Great work done here Patrick!

Cheers,

CCP

2

I didn’t work on this. It must have solved itself.

3

Patrick,

To learn that you didn’t work on fixing the USB device mounting issue is actually quite surprising.

As I previously noted, my pure Debian Jessie Guests have always been able to recognize, and (auto)mount USB devices, no root required, when Jessie is running under either VBox or KVM. In fact, Jessie had been able to easily handle USB devices since the earliest days of Rawhide testing.

That is precisely why I said this USB device issue was not a Debian, VBox, or KVM problem, it was exclusively a Workstation 11 problem.

Now it is sounding like you do not understand the cause(s) of the prior inability of Workstation 11 to mount USB devices, or the reason(s) the current Workstation 11 can mount USB devices.

If indeed there is an ‘understanding gap’, that does not exactly help me sleep better at night.

CCP 8)