Virtualbox Bluetooth

Assumptions:

There are some prerequisites before starting the steps.

• Windows PC with Bluetooth adapter
• Ubuntu installed as VirtualBox guest OS and running on Windows
• VirtualBox Guest Additions installed on Ubuntu guest OS

1. Disable Bluetooth adapter on Windows

   1.1. Launch Device Manager. (Right-click on the Windows icon at the bottom left corner of the desktop, then select Device Manager.)

   

   1.2. Disable Bluetooth adapter (right-click on your Bluetooth device and select Disable device by toggling Enable/Disable device.)

   

2. Launch Ubuntu

   2.1. Launch Oracle VM VirtualBox.

   2.2. Select your Ubuntu guest and click on the Start icon in the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager window.

   

3. Enable Bluetooth Adapter on Windows

   Go back to Device Manager, enable the Bluetooth adapter. (Right-click on the Bluetooth device and select Enable device.)

   

4. Enable Bluetooth adapter on Ubuntu (Guest OS)

   4.1. In Oracle VM VirtualBox window, select Devices -> USB from the top menu bar.

   4.2. Then select Bluetooth adapter to enable.

   

5. Verify

   Check if Bluetooth is enabled in Ubuntu by typing the following command.

   hciconfig -a
   

   If everything is fine, you should be able to see something like in the below example. Be sure it says UP RUNNING (line 4 in the below example).

   $ hciconfig -a
   hci0: Type: BR/EDR  Bus: USB
       BD Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx  ACL MTU: 1021:7  SCO MTU: 240:3
       UP RUNNING 
       RX bytes:1039 acl:0 sco:0 events:54 errors:0
       TX bytes:2435 acl:0 sco:0 commands:54 errors:0
       Features: 0xff 0xfe 0x8f 0xfe 0xdb 0xff 0x7b 0x87
       Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3 
       Link policy: RSWITCH HOLD SNIFF 
       Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT 
       Name: 'vm'
       Class: 0x0c0000
       Service Classes: Rendering, Capturing
       Device Class: Miscellaneous, 
       HCI Version: 4.0 (0x6)  Revision: 0x8300
       LMP Version: 4.0 (0x6)  Subversion: 0x9172
       Manufacturer: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (72)
   

_{Source: revised from Enabling Bluetooth in VirtualBox}