[libvirt-users] virt-manager can't start

[Cole Robinson]

On 02/02/2010 10:13 PM, Stephen Liu wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> KVM
> Virt-manager
> host - Debian 5.0
> 
> Starting;
> 
> Gnome
> Applications -> System Tools - Virtual Machine Manager
> 
> 
> popup following error;
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virt-manager.py", line 346, in <module>
>     main()
>   File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virt-manager.py", line 248, in main
>     setup_logging()
>   File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virt-manager.py", line 124, in setup_logging
>     os.mkdir(vm_dir)
> OSError: [Errno 17] File exists: '/home/satimis/.virt-manager'
> - end -
> 
> 
> $ ls -al /home/satimis/ | grep virt-manager
> drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root           4096 2009-05-31 06:11 .virt-manager
> 
> 
> $ mv /home/satimis/.virt-manager /home/satimis/.virt-manager.old01
> 
> Restart
> Applications -> System Tools - Virtual Machine Manager
> 
> starting GUI virt-manager but without asking for login as root
> 
> $ ls -al /home/satimis/ | grep virt-manager
> drwxr-xr-x  2 satimis  satimis        4096 2010-01-31 10:00 .virt-manager
> 
> 
> If changing the owner by running
> $ sudo chown root:root /home/satimis/.virt-manager
> 
> GUI virt-manage can't start with abovementioned warning pop.
> 
> 
> Please advise how to fix this problem.  I expect with root-password to
> start GUI
> virt-manager

You shouldn't be changing the ownership of the .virt-manager directory. If
running virt-manager and connecting to qemu:///system, a policykit dialog will
appear asking for root (on fedora at least), however the app will still be
running as a regular user.

If you want to run the app as root, use sudo or su. Other then that I'm not
sure what you are asking or why you are trying to change the directory
permissions.

FYI, I've improved error reporting in this area upstream now, so it will give
an explicit permission error rather than just blindly try to recreate the
directory:

http://hg.fedorahosted.org/hg/virt-manager/rev/96cd3bb0cdc0