{"id":505,"date":"2024-07-06T16:01:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T20:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/?p=505"},"modified":"2025-11-26T11:32:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:32:50","slug":"labbing-virtualization-part-3-el-ultimo-punto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/?p=505","title":{"rendered":"Labbing Virtualization Part 3 – El Ultimo Punto."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello there and welcome back! Well, here we are… Post numero tres about virtualization with regards to passing through a USB device into our lab environment. Hopefully you have read the first two articles; Par<\/a>t 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a>. If not you probably should just take a peek at them, just to be on the same page with my terminology and setup. Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, now that we are all on the same page, let’s dig into this whole “plugging in” option of physical equipment into a Virtual Machine inside of EVE-NG \/ PNET… But, why do this in the first place? Well, maybe you want to pass through an Ethernet USB dongle to virtual switch port on a virtual switch node in your lab. Or, perhaps you’d like to start actually labbing wireless from within a your virtual lab? Or maybe we can even push the whole virtual platform a little further and emulate some other security tasks? What’s that you say? A Virtual ISE Server for physical IP Phone with physical PC Authentications behind it? That may need to be a separate post for us…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, let’s get this show on the road here. I can’t believe I started this series of posts 4 years ago. Jeesh… Also, I switched to PNET from EVE-NG but this process is identical between the two platforms in my experience…<\/em> Another quick sidenote, when passing USB3 through to your Node in the hypervisor (EVE or PNET), make sure the guest OS can understand it. Basically windows 7 doesn’t have native support for USB3.x so, I built out a Windows 10 VM to show everyone this b\/c I didn’t feel like injecting drivers and hoping…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So per our last post (Labbing Virtualization Part 2<\/a>), we now see the Ralink Adapter within PNET\/EVE-NG’s “lsusb” list:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So let’s pass this thing through to the Windows 10 machine… So I have a Windows 10 (build 1607) in the lab that I will be working with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As shown above, we only have the default “Wired” Ethernet NIC that is available when installing windows normally with an ethernet adapter. Let’s hop over to Device Manager also…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Also, we don’t see a USB 3.x controller that PNET sees at this point. Let’s change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let’s shut it (the Win10 Machine)<\/em> down <\/strong>and grab a backup of the QEMU Options. Right click on the node on, in your lab, and click Edit. Then copy the entire value (using Command or Control A) to a text editor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My Win10 box has the following string listed under QEMU Options: -machine type=pc,accel=kvm -cpu host,+pcid,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,hv_spinlocks=0x1fff,hv_vapic,hv_time,hv_reset,hv_vpindex,hv_runtime,hv_relaxed,hv_synic,hv_stimer -vga qxl -device qemu-xhci -usbdevice tablet -boot order=cd -drive file=\/opt\/qemu\/share\/qemu\/virtio-win-drivers.img,index=1,if=floppy,readonly<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For starters, let’s being with letting Windows know we have a USB3.0 hub available to it. Modifying our original QEMU Options string above, with one additional option should do the trick. Basically “I want to use PNETs USB3.0 bus”; which in QEMU Option speak is “-device qemu-xhci”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So our new string is (note the blue<\/strong><\/mark>): -machine type=pc,accel=kvm -cpu host,+pcid,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,hv_spinlocks=0x1fff,hv_vapic,hv_time,hv_reset,hv_vpindex,hv_runtime,hv_relaxed,hv_synic,hv_stimer -vga qxl -device qemu-xhci<\/mark> -usbdevice tablet -boot order=cd -drive file=\/opt\/qemu\/share\/qemu\/virtio-win-drivers.img,index=1,if=floppy,readonly<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s paste that back into the Win10 Node, save the node in the lab, and then boot it up… Did anything change? Let’s check Device Manager again; and BOOM<\/strong>. There’s the USB 3.0 controller, from PNET, from VMWare, from the Dell Host. That’s not too exhausting right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So let’s shut the Win10 machine down again, and then modify that QEMU Options string one more time; adding the RAlink device (Bus 1 Device 5) from above. Again, copy out that QEMU string and let’s add the RAlink USB device. Or as they say in QEMU “-device usb-host,hostbus=1,hostaddr=5<\/em>“. (note, based off PNET\/EVE-NGs lsusb output, you will have to match the hostbus and hostaddr values)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My “fully updated” QEMU Options string now has the USB3.0 Controller<\/mark> as well as the RAlink USB Device: <\/mark>-machine type=pc,accel=kvm -cpu host,+pcid,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,hv_spinlocks=0x1fff,hv_vapic,hv_time,hv_reset,hv_vpindex,hv_runtime,hv_relaxed,hv_synic,hv_stimer -vga qxl -device qemu-xhci<\/mark> -device usb-host,hostbus=1,hostaddr=5<\/mark> -usbdevice tablet -boot order=cd -drive file=\/opt\/qemu\/share\/qemu\/virtio-win-drivers.img,index=1,if=floppy,readonly<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, let’s paste that “fully updated” string back into the Win10 Node, save it in the lab, and then boot it up… Did anything change, again? Let’s check Device Manager; and there’s our RAlink WiFi network device (the devaaaace). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just for kicks, let’s go back to Control Panel and Network Connections to see if anything has changed…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Ohhh SNAP Mr. Lewis…. ohhhh snap!”<\/em> (Kee and Peele reference)… Now we see a Wireless adapter. What is this trickery you see with your eyes? Let’s see if there’s actual WiFi in the Area…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And there is… Actual wireless on a Windows machine from within PNET, within VMWare as the original hypervisor, passing through a USB device from the Dell host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully this post helps with your labbing and a little more of your understanding. I’ll be using this setup going forward to build on for other labbing topics such as WiFi and Security. Catch you soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stark out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “Epic” conclusion of the Labbing Virtualization Series to showcase passing through physical USB devices to our nodes in a Virtual Labbing Platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[27,28,31,47,58],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-stuff","tag-homelab","tag-how-to","tag-labbing","tag-servers","tag-wifi"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":3,"name":"Tech Stuff","slug":"tech-stuff","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":43,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":43,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Tech Stuff","category_nicename":"tech-stuff","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"The \"Epic\" conclusion of the Labbing Virtualization Series to showcase passing through physical USB devices to our nodes in a Virtual Labbing Platform.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2553,"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions\/2553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenetworksdown.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}