HOWTO: Ipod Touch Sync in Virtualbox & Intrepid Ibex

[huanix]

i got the video done, but i need to edit it to hide my iPhone serial # and stuff. i'm probably going to drop it on my blog tomorrow night (11/18/2008 ) with an updated script for iphone/virtualbox .. look for virtualbox-iphone-r8.sh

[james.wilde]

Hi Baji:

First a big thank you for taking the trouble to not only make your iPod work in Virtualbox but making the process available to us others who don't have your competence in Linux.

Then, I have a problem after following your procedure. I am unable to find anywhere in Virtualbox to enable usb and usb2 devices. I have tried creating a second XP instance in the thought that I maybe couldn't add usb to the existing one, but I can't find any way to activate usb devices there either.

When I start my XP instance, I find under Devices an entry for USB Devices, but even after I connect my iPod, there is nothing here to be enabled. Here are the results of the tests you suggested:

Just to check, could you report the results of the following commands here:

grep 'vboxusers' /etc/group
grep '/proc/bus/usb' /etc/fstab
ls -al /proc/bus/usb/001/
lsmod | grep vbox
dpkg -l \* | grep virtualbox

vboxusers:125:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=125,devmode=664 0 0
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2008-11-18 12:54 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 0 2008-11-18 12:54 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root vboxusers 43 2008-11-18 12:54 001
vboxdrv 71576 0
un virtualbox <none> (no description available)
ii virtualbox-ose 2.0.4-dfsg-0ubuntu1 x86 virtualization solution - binaries
un virtualbox-ose-guest-modules <none> (no description available)
un virtualbox-ose-guest-source <none> (no description available)
ii virtualbox-ose-guest-utils 2.0.4-dfsg-0ubuntu1 x86 virtualization solution - guest utilitie
ii virtualbox-ose-source 2.0.4-dfsg-0ubuntu1 x86 virtualization solution - kernel module
un virtualbox-source <none> (no description available)

If you have updated the kernel, you have to reapply the usbcore fix. Could you try reconfiguring the vboxdrv module (sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup) and restarting?

setup is not available. I tried restart.

What iphone/ipod touch are you using? is it jailbroken?

It's a 30GB Classic model, about 3 years old I believe. Don't know what jailbroken means. I've been using it on my old XP box.

Thanks in advance if you can give me more help or suggestions.

//James

[b3n87]

Im looking forward to this video

[huanix]

sorry again; the video is done but the accompanying virtualbox itunes sync script is not complete. It's pretty difficult for me to get this stuff done during the week - i may have to finish it this weekend ( 11/22/2008 ). Again, my apologies.

[james.wilde]

BTW, I've done some more research, and discovered that I needed the official version of Virtualbox, and not the ose version. I have actually installed that now, and have a place to enable usb devices, but still no iPod contact. I've got a thread going in the virtualbox.com forum, which seems very slow, incidentally.

Basically I've created four filters, one for each of my usb ports. I can see the three devices I have connects, a wireless mouse, a keyboard and my iPod, but all three are greyed out when I click on Devices in the Virtualbox window. They are shown as unavailable, which is strange as I can use both the mouse and keyboard.

If I hover over the usb icon at the bottom right of the Virtualbox window, I see a text which tells me again that no USB devices are available. Everything seems to work except the iPod.

Anyone any suggestions about what else I can try?

TIA

//James

[james.wilde]

Fixed! The solution for me was in the following thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=828927

There is a command in there as follows:

echo "none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid="$(sed '/plugdev/!d;s/plugdev:\(.*\):.*/\1/' /etc/group)",devmode=664 0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

This adds not the vboxuser groupid but the plugdev groupid (46 in my case).

I've just noticed that I still have the vboxuser groupid on a line above the new plugdev line in /etc/fstab. Sometime I'll test removing that, and see if it breaks.

Thanks to all who have worked on this problem.

//James

[w.m]

Thank's for the tip.

It also worked for Nokia N95 usb connection.

[james.wilde]

Thanks, w.m. I have a N95, too, and if it didn't work against Evolution in the host, I was going to have to start work on the Windows guest for that, too. Now I know it should work.

//James

[bennich]

The USB Core fix worked like a charm - had already performed all the other steps.

Running 8.10, VirtualBox 2.0.4, Iphone 3G ver. 2.1, Itunes 8

Thanks a bunch.

Now we can only wait for VBox 2.1 - which should include a "native" fix.

[huanix]

Im looking forward to this video

I posted the newest version of the script, it will now detect and install the correct version of Virtualbox-2.0 (by adding the repository to your sources) and create a correct /etc/fstab listing for usb - that will assign the usb to the vbox group thanks to tauchris.

Okay - i did a video and put it up and got nothing but complaints for 24 hours... i did it, and i un-did it

www.huanix.com/2008/11/22/itunes-8-running-in-virtualbox-20-allows-usb-sync-with-iphone-and-ipod-touch/