Share Local USB Devices
To be able to access USB device from the client side, your USB device should be first shared. This process resembles sharing your hard disk resources among other users on the network. However, unlike file sharing, a USB device becomes inaccessible for local usage once it is shared.
If you want to share your USB device over the Internet, make sure that you have an external IP address, which can be visible and accessible from other computers.
In fact, USB Network Gate shares a USB port, to which you can connect any USB device. Moreover, you can disconnect a device, and connect another one to the shared USB port. No system reboot or application restart is needed. Just unplug your USB flash drive, then plug in your USB webcam, and it will automatically appear on the client side.
Licensing is based on the number of ports (devices) you can share, not the number of people using shared USB ports/devices. For example, Single License for one shared USB device allows you to share only one USB device on the server machine, though any number of people can connect to it remotely and utilize it (one client at a time).
To access any USB device remotely from the client side, the device must be plugged into the shared USB port on the server side. It is recommended to share a port with the device already plugged in.
Though, if you are sure which port is free, you can first share this port, and then connect your USB device to it.
In this example, a USB device is already plugged in. So let’s see how to share a USB port with a device attached to it using USB Network Gate:
1. Switch to the Local USB devices tab.
2. Select a USB device you want to share and click the Share button.
3. You can also customize some additional settings like TCP port, which will be used in connection, encryption and authorization, traffic compression (optional).
Sharing settings can be changed on the go:
3.1 TCP:
– set TCP port, which will be used in connection;
– or initiate callback (reverse) connection – connection with a client initiated from the server side (Connect to remote client option).
3.2 In the Device description field you can label your USB device – set a custom name for it. This name will be displayed on both the server and client sides. It can help you identify devices if several devices of the same type (e.g. two printers) are shared.
3.3 By enabling password authorization, you can use a password to secure connection. The client should paste the same password in order to establish a connection.
3.4 Traffic compression option helps speed up the interaction with certain types of USB devices and reduce Internet traffic. You may find this useful for USB devices that transfer data in an uncompressed format, like scanners. It is recommended not to use this option for USB devices that transfer incompressible types of data, e.g. isochronous USB devices (audio cards, webcams, etc.).
For example, webcam video compression is enabled by default, and further compression can result in degrading video quality.
3.5 You can enable traffic encryption. It is recommended for security reasons. All sent data will be encrypted, although it may slow down the communication speed.
3.6 Disconnect if there’s no device activity - You can configure a period of time after which the device will be disconnected from the client computer if the client does not interact with it in any way.
3.7 Allow disconnection by other users – You can allow remote clients to be disconnected from the shared USB device by other clients.
3.8 Don’t reset the device - When this option is enabled, the shared USB device will not be automatically restarted after its disconnection from the client computer.
Also, the USB port location can be displayed in the device description for better identification of similar USB devices (View → Show USB port location).
Tip: If you are unable to share the device, try unplugging the device, sharing the port where that device was present, and plugging it in again.
Now you can access the shared USB device from the client side.