USB passthrough is not supported

  • 3 December 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 5635 views
Alona
Rank
Userlevel 6
Badge +5
  • Alona Nutanix Employee
  • Nutanix Employee
  • 433 replies

Just a reminder today that Nutanix does not support USB passthrough on all platforms/hypervisors. There are no plans to support USB passthrough on Nutanix platforms due to security concerns and due to the fact that it affects features such as live migration, HA, 1-Click upgrades and more.

Alternative

If you need a guest VM to access USB devices, using AnywhereUSB is a valid solution. This solution uses a USB hub accessible over TCP/IP. A driver is installed on the VM and it emulates a USB device connected to the hub as if it was directly attached to the VM. This method is well-known to work and does not affect the features mentioned above. Please see the Digi site for further details:

www.digi.com/products/usb-and-serial-connectivity/usb-over-ip-hubs/anywhereusb

 

KB-3320 USB passthrough support on Nutanix platforms

This topic has been closed for comments

2 replies

K

As I’m new to Nutanix less then a week into a new cluster, I just had to dig into this a bit more. We use Citrix Virtual Desktop after adding the Delivery Group to our Citrix policy that allows USB devices https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX137939 the Virtual Desktop was now able to access the Webcam and USB drive. 

K

I’m new to Nutanix and was wondering is it in the road map to allow pass through? I know you stated security concerns but there are many ways to lock down USB access. We leverage VDI and have webcams on every endpoint for collaboration. Via Citrix I can lockdown USB access if needed. 

Terms & Conditions