Set up a serial port with VirtualBox on Ubuntu (guest OS : Windows XP)

Your user is not in the group that has access the serial port. You can either run Virtualbox as root (Not recommended ), or add your user to the group.

sudo usermod -a -G dialout <username>

You might have to logout and login again to make this work.

Cheers

First check the actual permissions on your host system. Something like:

~ ls -l /dev/ttyS0

Mine is:

crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 4, 64 2016-05-24 07:34:52 /dev/ttyS0

This means thay either I need to be root (first 'rw-' from left) or I need to be in the dialout group (second 'rw-' from left). Try from command line a check with command id like:

~ id uid=1000(enzo) gid=1000(enzo) groups=1000(enzo),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),113(lpadmin),127(sambashare)

In this case I cannot access that serial port. So I can add myself to dialout group:

~ sudo usermod -a -G dialout enzo where enzo is your very userid as shown above by command id Then you need to logout and log back in in orderto have this change effective.

I use a USB adapter im my Dell Inspiron.

$ lsusb | grep Serial

Bus 001 Device 012: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

$ dmesg | grep pl2303

[13131.366817] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303

[13131.366830] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for pl2303

[13131.366847] pl2303 1-2:1.0: pl2303 converter detected

[13131.367526] usb 1-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

So I changed /dev/ttyS0 to /dev/ttyUSB0 and it works like a charm.