On 15/10/23 10:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Came across this video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RAR1lo_Yc0> a few days ago, giving an example of the use of USB over IP. This lets you access a device physically connected to one machine from an entirely different machine.
The presenter is an SDR (Software-Defined Radio) enthusiast. He has his SDR dongles attached to a machine in his garage, where they can be connected to antennas that give good reception. But he prefers to access the radio channels from the comfort of his living room.
USB/IP is a platform-independent protocol, not restricted to Linux. Note also that the protocol has no authentication or encryption capability; so it’s best run only over a network (either physical or virtual) that you trust. The ever-dependable ArchLinux Wiki has an intro page <https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB/IP> with further useful links.
Another very useful application for this is for extended validation (EV) code signing (it's a rort, but that's another discussion). This requires a hardware key to be physically connected to the machine doing the signing. If that key is USB then you can share the dongle among a distributed team using USB over IP over your VPN. Glenn