DigiRig 1.9 and Virtualbox 7.0.14

Unusual use case:
Debian 11/64 host PC with i3, 16GB, 1TB running Virtualbox 7.0.14.
Passthrough USB for DigiRig 1.9
Guest OS Debian 11/64, XFCE4, 4GB/50GB.
All fully updated. Guest sees device
arecord -l
card 3: Device [USB PnP Sound Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0d8c:013c C-Media Electronics, Inc. CM108 Audio Controller
but does not see any ttyUSBx or ttySx devices which might be the PTT stuff. If I run the DigiRig on another PC or RPi both ttyUSB and the audio device arecord -l plughw:3,0 are seen without issue.
Any thoughts on what I am missing or what I need to get it all to pass through in Virtualbox?

That’s frustrating. I don’t run Virtualbox, but other VMs. Maybe you have explained this and I missed it. Do you have the Silicon Labs USB Serial driver installed and invoked in the VM’s image and in the host’s image?

73 Constrainted

The driver has been included in the kernel since the 3.x days (early 2000s) and Debian is Currently a 5.x kernel. It is recognized in the Debian 11 installed on another PC as both the SoundCard and Serial device.
The Debian VM host sees both the UART Bridge (what I call the serial side) and the soundcard CM108 side,
Bus 002 Device 018: ID 10c4:ea60 Silicon Labs CP210x UART Bridge
Bus 002 Device 017: ID 0d8c:013c C-Media Electronics, Inc. CM108 Audio Controller
but it doesn’t appear to send both sides to the guest which is what I’m trying to figure out.

OK. I do not run Virtualbox, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

In my experience with FreeBSD and its VM, the VM image is a small core image with only tty access. I have to include drivers and other programs in the image and then configure those that need passthrough in the definition when it is loaded as a VM. When I need to troubleshoot, I log into the VM via tty and look around the system. Then I make changes to the image or the loading configuration and recompile the image and reload the image until I get it right.

But maybe Virtualbox works differently. I think one of the other members will comment.

73 Constrainted

Yes it does work differently than KVM or proxmox or the others, but your nudge got me in the right direction. I am running a VM of the same OS as the host (long story, want to do an appliance and a docker container for future usage). I shut down the VM altogether. I then unplugged and re-plugged the DigiRig. I confirmed the C-Media and the CP-210x bridge devices were enumerated in the host OS. I deleted both USB shares. I recreated both USB shares for the VM. I started the VM again. I waited 30-45 seconds and ssh’d into the VM. I ran

arecord -l
and it saw the CMedia device. I ran
ls -la /dev/serial/by-id
AND IT’S THERE! Yay! Fired up Direwolf and it trips my Baofeng! Yay! Onward and upward!

1 Like

Congratulations! Thanks for reporting back with your success!

73 Constrainted

I hate it when people don’t report back, just leaving something hanging open…

Good luck with the larger project. Let us know how that works out.

73 Constrainted

1 Like