VirtualBox USB passthrough not possible

[MissingAName]

Hey there,

I am trying to pass some USB device from a Mac OS host to a virtual Kali guest inside VirtualBox.
Kali is 2023.1 and VBox is 7.0.10 with latest guest additions installed.

Just as always I created a filter, but I dont see any device in Kali at all.

The device (NIC) is recognized on the host, and VBox confirms it as "held":

VBoxManage list usbhost
Host USB Devices:

UUID:               4af9e2a8-xxx-e3453deceacd
VendorId:           0x0b95 (0B95)
ProductId:          0x772b (772B)
Revision:           0.2 (0002)
Port:               0
USB version/speed:  0/High
Manufacturer:       ASIX Elec. Corp.
Product:            AX88772C
SerialNumber:       0002FD
Address:            p=0x772b;v=0x0b95;s=0x0000fc92ef2cd191;l=0x14200000
Current State:      Held

Looking at lsusb inside Kali, no USB device is visible:

sudo lsusb   
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

I tried it with different USB devices, always the same. I cleared out the fields in the filter to have only vendor and product ID left.

No result.

Any idea?

Cheers

[Fred Sheehan]

Don't plug in USB until after you have started virtual box, then you should be asked where to attach it.. your main Mac machine, or the virtual machine..

[MissingAName]

Don't plug in USB until after you have started virtual box, then you should be asked where to attach it.. your main Mac machine, or the virtual machine..

Thx for the hint. I tried that. In the mean time I found this: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=108313
Apparently this is a known flaw in Mac OS. Starting VBox as root solves it. Ofc this creates other OPSEC related ones...