USB on Arch Linux as guest in virtualbox

Question

Hi. I'm trying to access the usb port in the arch linux running as guest in the virtualbox so I added in the "/etc/fstab" file this line:
"none /proc/bus/usb usbfs auto,busgid=###,busmode=0775,devgid=108,devmode=0664 0 0"
to mount the usb automatically, where "###" is the group id that the user is in. As i wasn't in any group and 'vboxusers' group wasn't created when I installed "virtualbox-guest-utils" as I expected so I created the group and added my self into it doing:
sudo groupadd vboxusers
sudo usermod -aG vboxusers rsegecin
grep vboxusers /etc/group
after that when I tried to mount all devices using "mount -a" I get an error saying that the mounting point  "/proc/bus/usb" doesn't exist, so I created another mount point in "/home/rsegecin/usb" and I got another error saying that the file system type 'usbfs' is unknown.
how do I register the file system type 'usbfs'? how can I access the usb port in guest arch linux?
thank you very much.

Answer 1

Okay, this is a long shot.  Let's try this experiment.  I found a suggest that one try this as root:
mount --bind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
But here is what that does.  In the olden days, /proc was the way to deal with virtual file systems that let you communicate with the kernel.  It used to be there was /proc/bus/usb.  That was deprecated, and later removed in favor of /dev/bus/usb.  It kind of makes sense, because it is a device, not a kernel thingy.  But there are legacy software that look in /proc/bus.  That bind command links the old method to the new method.  But, it also says that the stuff in /dev/bus/usb is the same stuff that had been in /proc/bus/usb.  (Forgive we, I am thinking this though as I type).   Where this leaves me is this, your device is appearing at /dev/bus/usb/001/002.  You can prove that by removing the device (using the Virtualbox tools to disconnect the device from the VM).  That node should go away, then reappear when you reconnect it.  The problem is what do you do with it?  I don't think that usbfs exists anymore.
What kind of device is it?  There may be a better way to deal with it.  Obviously, if it is mass storage, there are ways to use it as such.  Likewise, if it is a character device (serial port, modem, etc) there may be a /dev/ttyUSBx type node to talk to it.  If it is a HID (Human Interface Device) like a keyboard, mouse, joystick. or a lot of widgets that use the HID model (like credit card readers), there will be a node like /dev/hidraw0.  I have used that quite a bit.
Maybe we should back up a bit.  After you (virtually) connect the device, what gets appended to the journal?  Also, what is the output of lsusb -v