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8 VBoxManage reference
8.21 VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove
The usbfilter commands are used for working with USB filters in virtual machines,
or global filters which affect the whole VirtualBox setup. Global filters are applied be-
fore machine-specific filters, and may be used to prevent devices from being captured
by any virtual machine. Global filters are always applied in a particular order, and only
the first filter which fits a device is applied. So for example, if the first global filter says
to hold (make available) a particular Kingston memory stick device and the second to
ignore all Kingston devices, that memory stick will be available to any machine with
an appropriate filter, but no other Kingston device will.
When creating a USB filter using usbfilter add, you must supply three or four
mandatory parameters. The index specifies the position in the list at which the filter
should be placed. If there is already a filter at that position, then it and the following
ones will be shifted back one place. Otherwise the new filter will be added onto the
end of the list. The target parameter selects the virtual machine that the filter should
be attached to or use “global” to apply it to all virtual machines. name is a name for
the new filter and for global filters, action says whether to allow machines access
to devices that fit the filter description (“hold”) or not to give them access (“ignore”).
In addition, you should specify parameters to filter by. You can find the parameters
for devices attached to your system using VBoxManage list usbhost. Finally, you
can specify whether the filter should be active, and for local filters, whether they are
for local devices, remote (over an RDP connection) or either.
When you modify a USB filter using usbfilter modify, you must specify the
filter by index (see the output of VBoxManage list usbfilters to find global
filter indexes and that of VBoxManage showvminfo to find indexes for individual
machines) and by target, which is either a virtual machine or “global”. The properties
which can be changed are the same as for usbfilter add. To remove a filter, use
usbfilter remove and specify the index and the target.
8.22 VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove
This command allows you to share folders on the host computer with guest operat-
ing systems. For this, the guest systems must have a version of the VirtualBox guest
additions installed which supports this functionality.
Shared folders are described in detail in chapter 4.6, Folder sharing, page 68.
8.23 VBoxManage metrics
This command supports monitoring the usage of system resources. Resources are
represented by various metrics associated with the host system or a particular VM. For
example, the host system has a CPU/Load/User metric that shows the percentage of
time CPUs spend executing in user mode over a specific sampling period.
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