You can add one or more USB passthrough devices from a client computer to a virtual machine on the virtual machine Summary page in the vSphere Web Client. The devices must be connected to a client computer that connects to the ESXi host on which the virtual machine resides.

About this task

Note:

If you connect to a USB device on a Mac OS X client computer, you can add only one device to the virtual machine at a time.

The devices maintain their virtual machine connections in S1 standby, if the vSphere Web Client is running and connected. After you add the USB device to the virtual machine, an information message appears on the client computer stating that the device is disconnected. The device remains disconnected from the client computer until the virtual machine releases it.

FT is not supported with USB passthrough from a client computer to a virtual machine.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the Client Integration Plug-in is installed.

  • Verify that a USB Controller is present.

  • Verify that the vSphere Web Client has access to the ESXi host on which the virtual machines are running.

  • Required Privilege: Virtual machine > Configuration > Add or remove device

Procedure

  1. Navigate to a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, host, or vApp, and click the Related Options tab and click Virtual Machines.
  2. Select a virtual machine, click it again, and click the Summary tab.
  3. Click the USB icon to the right of USB Devices under VM Hardware and select an available device from the drop-down menu.

    A Connecting label and a spinner appear, which indicates that a connection is in progress. When the device has successfully connected and the Summary tab refreshes, the device is connected and the device name appears next to USB Devices.