I’ve an ethernet port in my closet and an ethernet post in my office. Is it possible to plug a USB hub into the one ethernet port to be used by the computer connected to the other port?
There is such thing as a USB over Cat5 extender. But these are not actual TCP/IP devices, they just use the same type of cable as ethernet. So it’ll only work if the ethernet cable between your office and closet isn’t connected to any other network or device.
Sounds like what you’re after is a USB over IP device such as this one.
Looks like there’s some software included that handles mapping the distant USB ports onto your local PC.
(Un)fortunately, I’m on a Mac, and the drivers are for PCs.
Well, there’s always Parallels. <g>
Now that you know what the dingus is called, you may be able to keep searching and find one that speaks Mac.
If the device you want to reticulate from USB over Ethernet is a printer then the answer is an Airport Express. OSX does do USB over IP, but it restricts the devices to printers and Apples own bridge device. Annoying, in that the actual protocol is apparently pretty much the standard one used by everyone else. For instance, the Airport Express also does sound, and the audio is done with a TI USB dac chip. But the Express won’t support a USB DAC (even the exact same TI chip) plugged into the USB port on the Express.