usb devices empty in vmware host under linux

I had an issue running vmware server on my ubuntu 7.10 box where the vmware host could not see any usb devices connected to the linux box. This site has the answer, at the bottom.

Basically you need to put this line in /etc/fstab:

usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs auto 0 0

and reboot (bit drastic), or just issue this command:

mount -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb

before restarting vmware server (/etc/init.d/vmware-server restart) and startup the host computer again.