15.3. Attaching USB devices to virtual machines by using the command line

Procedure

1. Locate the bus and device values of the USB that you want to attach to the VM.

   For example, the following command displays a list of USB devices attached to the host. The device we will use in this example is attached on bus 001 as device 005.

   # lsusb
   [...]
   Bus 001 Device 003: ID 2567:0a2b Intel Corp.
   Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0407:6252 Kingston River 2.0
   [...]

2. Use the virt-xml utility along with the --add-device argument.

   For example, the following command attaches a USB flash drive to the example-VM-1 VM.

   # virt-xml example-VM-1 --add-device --hostdev 001.005
   Domain 'example-VM-1' defined successfully.

   注意

   To attach a USB device to a running VM, add the --update argument to the command.

Verification

1. Use the virsh dumpxml command to see if the device’s XML definition has been added to the <devices> section in the VM’s XML configuration file.

   # virsh dumpxml example-VM-1
   [...]
   <hostdev mode='subsystem' type='usb' managed='yes'>
     <source>
       <vendor id='0x0407'/>
       <product id='0x6252'/>
       <address bus='1' device='5'/>
     </source>
     <alias name='hostdev0'/>
     <address type='usb' bus='0' port='3'/>
   </hostdev>
   [...]

2. Run the VM and test if the device is present and works as expected.