PCI passthrough with Citrix XenServer 6.5

5. PCI passthrough with a Windows virtual machine

5.1. Attach an USB key to a virtual machine on Windows

To attach an USB key to a virtual machine on Windows, it's very simple.
Connect it physically to the server and it will appear in the "Removable storage" section of your XenServer server.

Then, select the virtual machine on which you want to connect it and go to the "Storage" tab of it.
At the bottom of the list, click on the "Attach Disk" button.

Select your USB key from the list and click Attach.
In our case, this is this removable device : SCSI 3:0:0:0 - Kingston model DT Elite 3.0 ...

Now, your USB key is associated as a storage device on your "Windows 7 (64-bit)" virtual machine.

If you select the USB key you just associated with your virtual machine and click on "Properties", you will see that you can choose :

• the mode to use : Read / Write or Read Only
• his position : Device Position

Once the virtual machine is booted, you will see that your USB storage device will appear as a local disk in the virtual machine. Even if it's physically an USB key.

As expected, we find the data on the physical USB key.

If you take a look at the available storage on your XenServer server, you will see that your USB key is being used by the virtual machine with which you previously associated it.

5.2. Detach an USB key of a virtual machine on Windows

To detach your USB key from your Windows virtual machine, return to the "Storage" tab of this virtual machine.
Then, select the USB key you wish to detach and click on : Detach.
Finally, confirm the action by clicking Yes.