Outdated instructions in FreeBSD Handbook (Section 21.6 - FreeBSD as a Host with VirtualBox)

[Fehmi Noyan ISI]

Hi there,

Section 21.6.2 of the handbook should be updated to reflect the USB support issue of VirtualBox used on FreeBSD host operating system.


Apparently, FreeBSD is not one of the officially supported operating systems by Oracle[1], hence their latest extension pack (VirtualBox 5.0.14 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack), which can be downloaded from [2], is not available for FreeBSD hosts. 


This extension pack enables USB 2.0/3.0 communication ports to be enabled/used in the guest operating system. Oracle's description for the extension pack is 


"Support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards..." 


Unfortunately, without this extension pack, FreeBSD host operating system cannot pass the USB port to the guest OS. Even though the user follows the steps given in Section 21.6.2 of FreeBSD Handbook, it is not possible to get USB 2.0/3.0 working in the guest OS. There is a forum thread on the topic [4] 


Bug report 207630 has been created for the issue. [5]

[1] https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8073 

[2] https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
[3] https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/virtualization-host-virtualbox.html
[4] https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/47579/

[5] https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=207630