waiyao / usbipd-win

Windows software for sharing locally connected USB devices to other machines, including Hyper-V guests and WSL 2.

usbipd-win

Windows software for sharing locally connected USB devices to other machines, including Hyper-V guests and WSL 2.

How to use

This software requires Microsoft Windows 8 / Microsoft Windows Server 2012 or newer; it does not depend on any other software.

Installation

Run the installer (.msi) from the latest release on the Windows machine where your USB device is connected.

Alternatively, use the Windows Package Manager:

winget install usbipd

This will install and run a service called usbipd (display name: USBIP Device Host). You can check the status of this service using the Services app from Windows. Additionally, it will add the command line tool usbipd in your path.

Lookup and Enable Devices

By default devices are not shared with usbip clients. To lookup and share devices, open a command prompt as an Administrator and use the usbipd tool. For example:

usbipd --help
usbipd list
usbipd bind --busid=<bus-port>

Connecting Devices

From another (possibly virtual) machine running Linux, use usbip to claim the USB device:

usbip list --remote=<host>
sudo usbip attach --remote=<host> --busid=<bus-port>

A list of tested devices can be found on the wiki. Please file an issue if you your device is not working.

How to remove

Uninstall via Add/Remove Programs or via Settings/Apps.

Alternatively, use the Windows Package Manager:

winget uninstall usbipd

There should be no left-overs, but if you do find any: please file an issue.

How it works

The software glues together the UsbIp network protocol (as implemented by the Linux kernel) and the USB drivers. The installer includes the USB drivers from VirtualBox, which are also licensed under GPL and are properly signed by Oracle. This should play nice with a coexisting full installation of VirtualBox, but that has not been tested extensively.

The software itself consists of an auto-start background service.

The installer also adds a firewall rule called usbipd to allow all local subnets to connect to the service; this firewall rule can be tweaked to fine tune access control.

USBIP on WSL 2

Currently, WSL 2 does not support USB devices by default. A workaround to this limitation is to use usbip. Instructions on how to setup a Linux usbip client can be found here.