My main computer is on its own deticated desk. This is great as it creates +an issolated space for when its just 'work' time, however it can be frustrating +when I'm trying to experiment with embedded boards and trying to program them +from my computer. Of course I could just invest in a really long USB cable, but +then there wouldn't be any fun in that, therefore I setup a tool I found, +usbip.
+ +Usbip is a tool for linux, mac and (jankily) windows. The primary use is to +allow for the USB protocol to be used over a network, and allow of machines to +share a single USB device. This could be great for a Raspberry Pi with a camera +and an at home recording studio, or for having a workshop seperate from your +good computer. Because of just how useful I've found this over the past few +months, I'm going to show you exactly how to do this for yourself.
+ +So first things first, you need to install usbip on both machines. Do this +with whatever package manager your distro(s) use.
+ +After this you need to load the kernel module for usbip on the host machine +(this is the machine which the physical USB device will be connected to). To do +this, run 'sudo modprobe usbip_host'. This will load the kernel module. To make +it so that you only have to do this once, we can set up the module to be loaded +on boot. To do this, edit the shown file.
+ +#file /etc/modules +usbip_host ++ +
One you've added that to the file, we can start setting up the usb device to +be shared. To do this, run 'lsusb' and find the device you want to share. We +are looking specifically for the value after 'ID'. Now, run 'usbip list -p -l', +and you will see a list of devices that can be shared. Find the device that +matches the ID from lsusb. Now we need the busid for that device. Its probably +of format '1-X.X.X' or something like that. The number of 'X's can be +different, and I believe it has to do if the device is on a hub.
+ +So now that we have the busid, we can bind that device to usbip, so that +remote clients can use it. To do this, run 'sudo usbip bind +--busid=<BUSID>', where <BUSID> is replace with the busid you found +earlier. Now all we have to do is run 'sudo usbipd', and the machine is now +listening for clients! Now lets set up the client.
+ +So on the client we also want to have usbip installed as well of course. No +we must load a kernel module here too, 'vhci-hcd'. This can be loaded the same +way as above, by running the command 'sudo modprobe vhci-hcd'. Feel free to add +that name to the same file as we added 'usbip_host' above.
+ +Now we can add our client to the server with a single command and get access +to our USB device. We do this by running 'sudo usbip attach -r +<SERVER_IP> -b <BUSID>'. Be sure to replace all of the apropriate +fields with their appropriate values. After this it should all be working, and +you should have full access to the remote USB device!
+ +On some systems, especially those were you configured your own kernel, it +may be necessary to add support into your kernel for USB over IP if you didn't +add it before. To do this, enable the shown options.
+ +#Enable these options in your kernel +CONFIG_USBIP_CORE +CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HCD +CONFIG_USBIP_HOST +#Set these to your use case +CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HC_PORTS #default is 8 ports +CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_NR_HCS #default is 1 port ++ +
All of these are in Device drivers -> UBS Support. Be sure to recompile +your kernel and you should be able to use usbip.
+ + +Thats all I have on usbip, hope this helped you set it up!
+ +