Oracle workaround/issue

Penta88 · 02 Nov 2022

Hello guys.
I need your help with a project using 1 PC and 3 or 4 virtual machine with oracle.
In order to improve the production of the devices which we use in our lab I would like to implement oracle but there is a problem with the process.
I leave you a pic which show what I'm talking about and I explain better here below the whole process.

Every single vitual machine must be connected / locked to a single usb hub.
From this USB hub 4 devices are connected and unlocked at the firmware level thanks to our internal program
This process obviously works with a single pc, one program and 4 devices but as mentioned before I would like to increase production so that each pc can work 16 devices at the same time and not 4
The problem is that it seems not possible to bind a single hub to a single virtual machine which makes the processing very lunchtime because you need to select the devices every time and bind them to the virtual machines.
I don't know if I have made myself clear but the question is the following. Is it possible with oracle to LOCK hubs to a virtual machine so that the connected devices are automatically seen without selecting them every time on every vistual machine?

cereberus · 06 Nov 2022

I have no idea how to do that using Oracle vms, but it is you might be able to do this using Hyper-V vms.

You would need Pro installed as the guest OSs so you can used enhanced mode.

During initial configuration, you can select which usb drive is connected to a vm, and save settings.

I have tested with 2 vms, one showing one usb drive, and one showing other, and it works well.

However, I have no idea if that would work for you as I do not know how your hubs are seen to Windows e.g. are they shown as a drive letter etc.

As an aside, if I was running 4 vms, I would be using Hyper-V as it is much more efficient in resource uses being a type 1 hypervisor.

Hopachi · 07 Nov 2022

Hi there,

You can try the USB device filtering in Oracle Virtualbox, see user manual:
3.11. USB Support

You might need the extension pack but after adding a USB controller to a VM, you can add a filter and assign a device, in your case a hub to the VM. In this case the hub will be automatically added to the VM on each startup.

The most difficult part is locating and adding each hub by the right vendor ID. Be careful with identical hubs, you might want to plug them in one at a time and add to VM one by one. If all hubs can be easily identified then just plug them all in PC and add your USB filter with different hub per VM.