Feature request: support for parallel interface

[intelcyl]

Hi friend, we neeed too implementation of LPT port. Many devices, especially those using dongles, need this port.
Virtualbox is a great software, very stable, and a great solution for energy save, because people can remove your old equipment.

Plese, we join the requests of users, where possible, put this port in software.

Thanks in advance.

[nurvzy]

I too have registered for the site just to add my "me too" to this thread.

I need LPT1 dongle support. I see in the MachineName.xml There is a section for it:
<LPT>
......
</LPT>

Both ports are enabled="false", I try setting them to true which seems to show up in my guest OS, but it doesn't actually point to any of my /dev/lpt0 or the like.

Please, I love virtual box. I hope to see this feature come soon.

[ETMegabyte]

I too have registered for the site just to add my "me too" to this thread.

I need LPT1 dongle support. I see in the MachineName.xml There is a section for it:
<LPT>
......
</LPT>

Both ports are enabled="false", I try setting them to true which seems to show up in my guest OS, but it doesn't actually point to any of my /dev/lpt0 or the like.

Please, I love virtual box. I hope to see this feature come soon.

Hmmm. If you manually enable it in the xml file, they show up in the host. Checking my xml files, I see the following:

Code: Select all

      <LPT>
        <Port slot="0" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4"/>
        <Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4"/>
      </LPT>

Looking at this, Port slot 0, if enabled, should be IOBase 0x378, but the IRQ should be 7, not 4 for the default BIOS setup of LPT1. Has anyone with a windows host tried to implement this? I don't even have a parallel port in this PC or I'd try it myself...

nurvzy, I assume that it shows up the same in the xml file under linux, correct? I would try enabling only port 0, and changing the irq to 7. Leave port 1 disabled. (you don't want two virtual ports accessing the same iobase and irq, and if you enabled both, you're essentially pointing LPT1 and LPT2 in your VM to the same port, which is probably bad...)

If this does not work, then I'd verify in linux that your parallel port is actually using iobase 0x378 and check what IRQ it's using... It should be in /proc/sys somewhere... Also verify that your regular user account has permission to access to your LPT port directly (since this is something that by default is probably not allowed), since VB will require direct port access for this to work... It may be as simple as adding yourself to the "printers" group or something...

-ET

[mark rumsey]

OK, I've given this a try and there is a problem.

I have a Windows 7 host with a physical ECP parallel port (port378/IEQ7/DMA3) and I've set up a DOS 6.22 guest for testing. Currently I don't have the header to connect to the motherboard, so I can't physically connect a parallel device (something I intend to remedy), but I should be able to see it in MSD (Microsoft Diagnositcs). With the default settings MSd reports there are no parallel ports. I changed the XML file from

<Port slot="0" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4"/>

to

<Port slot="0" enabled="true" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="7"/>

On trying to start the machine, I was told that there had to be a path and the virtual machine closed down before even attempting to boot. So, I made another change to the line to make it

<Port slot="0" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4" path="LPT1"/>

Things now get a touch further. I get the auto capture keyboard warning as I should, but then I get another message

Failed to start the virtual machine test.
Parallel device 0 cannot attach to host driver (VERR_PDM_DRIVER_NOT_FOUND).
Unknown error creating VM (VERR_PDM_DRIVER_NOT_FOUND).

Result Code:
E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component:
Console
Interface:
IConsole {9511bc54-15ee-4ddf-808e-472aba03809c}

From this I assume the missing driver is the VirtualBox driver that links the virtual machine to the physical port and I assume is the bit that samatvbox was referring to above that someone was starting to develop for Linux, but so far does not exist for Windows.

For me this feature has just gone from highly desirable to absolutely essential. I need to be able to run Windows 98 dongle protected software in a virtual machine. My plan was to use MS VPC2007 to do this one task and keep VBox for everything else. However, Microsoft have scuppered that plan by blocking VPC2007 from installing on Windows 7 due to 'compatibility issues'. This means that Win7 is limited to the new Windows VPC, which is limited as it only runs WindowsXP as a guest unless you know how to manually (which isn't easy) and also no longer supports parallel ports. It also has hardware virtualisation enabled as standard with no means of disabling it and uses remote desktop to put the display on the screen. What this now means is there is no way to support parallel port dongles, printers or other devices (like ZIP drives, which I also use) on virtual machines under Windows 7 unless VirtualBox is upgraded to give this functionallity. Please, please, please, please can we have it!

[nurvzy]

I've since gotten a little futher. I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 (Host) with Windows7 (Guest). Edit the Windows7.xml file to:

<LPT>
<Port slot="0" enabled="true" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="7" path="/dev/parport0" />
<Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4" />
</LPT>


However, when I booted I got the error:
Parallel device 0 cannot attach to host driver (VERR_PDM_DRIVER_NOT_FOUND).
Unknown error creating VM (VERR_PDM_DRIVER_NOT_FOUND).

So I reinstalled my printer driver to parallel:lp0 (from hp:drivers/parport0) and changed my path from "/dev/parport0" to "/dev/lp0".

<Port slot="0" enabled="true" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="7" path="/dev/lp0" />

Then I rebooted, and sure enough it was able to mount. Windows7 sees there's a LPT1. I've installed the appropriate printer drivers for Windows7 but when I try a print test, nothing prints. So now I have what appears to be a working LPT1 Port but it doesn't actually work -- at least its closer than I before. I'll keep fooling around with it and report back if I find a solution.

[neophile]

I think , by seeing the number of asking about the parallel port feature, the vbox team don't do anything because this feature should be an hypothetic commercial function available only with a future business version of VBox.Sure, I preffer be wrong.

[LinuxIsHard]

Parallel port isn't there, but there's almost 0 demand for it, so we better spend our resources elsewhere. It wouldn't be difficult to implement, and the current serial device (and the QEMU source) could be a guideline how to implement it in little time.

Having mentioned the serial port, it is there in 1.4 but no host serial port yet.

Hello,
sorry, I can not understand your "0 demand" and "priority is too low" at all???? I don't think you really know what people need.
anyone tell me why even the UI (2.2 --> 3.0) changing is high priority and more demand and necessary than this?

[belanger]

I need parallel port for an old DOS application running in DOS guest OS.... well, the application actually need 2 parallel ports.

Any clue when this will be added?

Cheers,
PB

[samatvbox]

It seems most people concerning about parallel port support have overseen my previous post ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PARALLEL PORT WORKS FOR ME WITH LINUX HOST !!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote of my entry from 15.04.09:

I need parallel port support for a dongled (os) under linux host as well.

Have read this forum and followed http://vbox.innotek.de/pipermail/vbox-d ... 00252.html
step-by-step. Parallel port dongle works fine with the dongled OS and a Rainbow C+ sentinel ...

Host:Puppy 4.2 with VirtualBox 2.1.2 (sfs)

A few more details (quote from the a.m. link):

... Howto enable:
1. patch vbox with: patch -Np0 -i vbox-parallel.patch
2. build vbox
3. configure your linux host (all commands as root):

modprobe ppdev
rmmod lp (VirtualBox claims exclusive access to the device)
chmod 666 /dev/parport0 (or add your user to the owner group)

4. Configure your guest:

./VBoxManage setextradata vm_name
"VBoxInternal/Devices/parallel/0/Config/IRQ" 4

./VBoxManage setextradata vm_name
"VBoxInternal/Devices/parallel/0/Config/IOBase" 0x378

./VBoxManage setextradata vm_name
"VBoxInternal/Devices/parallel/0/LUN#0/Driver" HostParallel

./VBoxManage setextradata vm_name
"VBoxInternal/Devices/parallel/0/LUN#0/Config/DevicePath" /dev/parport0

5. Start your guest
...

For me it even worked without steps 1 ... 3. Following the steps from "modprobe ppdev"
until step 4 enabled the par.-port.

Good luck!

[vbox4me2]

IRQ 5 or 7 would be better.

[samatvbox]

IRQ 5 or 7 would be better.

sure, since its assigned to a COM-port usually. Sorry - had overseen that.
But the ones able to understand the "example" should be able to adjust that ...

Cheers

[myslef]

hi there. it worked me with new VB 3.0.4, but for a moment. i've got gentoo host with fresh win xp pro guest (just for pport check), configured xml file with the samatvbox's instruction and it worked. but there was a problem with backward communication; i could set some output, but port didn't work as an input. i've tried some lpt1 changes in device manager (the 2nd tab, 'port settings' or something, with irq and PnP). and nothing works now, regardless of config. with using parapin in host everything is ok. any ideas?
the my main purpose of using pport is direct controlling the port in my windows dedicated applications. isp programmer and printer can work in linux (but it'd be nice to use windows' more configurable and powerful isp apps).

[needLPT1]

This is really a necessity, due to the dongle requirement. I read all the posts, and tried a couple of things, but no luck. I was really excited that I wouldn't have to reboot my PC to switch between some stubborn software and regular use. VirtualBox worked great, until I got to sensing the license through the parallel port dongle. Now after 8 hours of loading software and getting things ready, I can go no further until someone gets things ready for LPT1.

I don't quite understand why my printer, connected to LPT1, works from the VBox machine, but the dongle doesn't. Maybe it is the bi-directional thing.

I am running XP SP3 as a host, and XP SP2 for the client. Without the dongle, it's back to the ugly dual-boot method of using things.

I don't believe that I could write the necessary driver/software to make this work under windows, but I'm willing to do what I can if someone else is capable of working on this.

[GeorgeBourrie]

I too have registered on this forum just to add to the chorus of "Me, too!" for the parallel port interface. There are enough of us out there who have requested it. Will someone please add it?

[mgi]

Hello,

I like VirtualBox, because it's working under Ubuntu out of the box and is easy to use.

But I need a parallel port for several reason,
so PLEASE implement native parallel port support.

Thanks