Installing DBDOC on a virtual machine

DBDOC should install and run perfectly fine on any virtual machine that otherwise meets our operating system requirements, using any hypervisor. The one potential complication is the USB security dongles that the DBDOC build system uses.

Contents

Software License

As of current DBDOC versions, see Licensing DBDOC for the procedure for acquiring and applying a software-based license instead of a hardware-based license.

If you have any questions, require further help, or have any feedback, do not hesitate to contact GMCL.

Hardware License

If you have an existing hardware USB key for your DBDOC license, you may be able to use it as long as you have a machine that can have a USB device attached to it, and is reachable over a network by the machine the DBDOC build system will be running on. Some possibilities are detailed below, though if your hypervisor has built-in support that is probably the first thing to try. Some third-party solutions are detailed below.


VirtualHere USB Client and Server

VirtualHere's solution has been tested and found to be working. The trial version only supports a single USB device being shared.

  1. On a machine that can have a USB device attached to it, and is reachable over a network by the machine the DBDOC build system will be running on, download the VirtualHere Windows server. It should be able to be run from anywhere without installation needed; it will write its config file to whatever directory it is run from.
  2. On the build machine, download the VirtualHere Windows client executable. This also does not require installation; however it does require some DLLs from Microsoft. You can either:
    1. Copy it into the DBDOC "Programs" folder (likely C:\Program Files (x86)\GMCL\DBDOC\Programs), or
    2. Simply run it from anywhere as long as you have the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable package for 2015/2017/2019 installed.
  3. To connect to the server instance,
    1. run the client executable and right-click on "USB Hubs" and chose "Specify Hubs...".
    2. Now click "Add" and provide the network address (either the full network name, or the IP address) followed by the port used (the default port is 7575).
      • For example, "siddhartha.gmcl.internal:7575".
      • This may require that port to be open on both the server and the client.
    3. You should see your server instance now listed in the client window, and one of the devices listed under it should be "Sentinel HL". Right-click on it and choose to use that device.
      • The first time you do this, you will likely be prompted to install a driver. This should not be necessary on subsequent runs, however a reboot may be necessary after this initial driver installation.

USB/IP

Free Software developed for and maintained these days as part of the Linux kernel, there are Windows client and server variants of USB/IP out there. However, no combinations tried have been found to work on Windows by GMCL.

Eltima USB Network Gate

Eltima's solution has been tested and found to be working. It is, however, not inexpensive, and the trial is time-limited.

KernelPro USB-over-Ethernet

KernelPro USB-Over-Ethernet is less expensive than Eltima and has been reported to work, but has not been tested by GMCL.

Fabutech

Fabutech offers two potential solutions, USB for Remote Desktops and USB over Network. Neither has been tested by GMCL.


Microsoft RemoteFX

Unfortunately, Microsoft's RemoteFX functionality for sharing USB devices over RDP does not work for the Sentinel dongle.