ESXi: Pass through an USB device to a VM

Hi,

ESXi has an option to pass through an host attached USB device to a VM. VMware provides a list of supported USB Devices.

USB devices with of class CCID, smartcards for example, cannot redirected out of the box. When you try to add the device an error: “Cannot connect ‘path:0/1/6/1’ to this virtual machine. The device was not found.”

Here are my troubleshooting steps:

Logon to the ESXi console via ssh or ESXi shell and look if the device is recognized

root@myESXiHost~ # lsusb
...
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 04f1:9816 Smartcard ExampleDevice, Inc.
...

Get more details on the device

root@myESXiHost~ # lsusb -d 04f1:9816 -v
...
iConfiguration          3 CCID Class
...
bInterfaceClass        11 Chip/SmartCard
...
iInterface              4 CCID Interface
...

If it is identified as a CCID device are redirected is possible. Shutdown your VM.

Add an virtual USB Controller