virsh/libvirt error: failed to connect to the hypervisor


I'm working with libvirtd/virt-manager/qemu at work.  I have a bunch of F11 systems installed and working just fine.  Today I tried one of the extra lab boxes, same OS config, but when I tried to use the virt-* commands I'd get an error:

mjhammel(tty0)$ sudo virsh –connect qemu:///system
error: failed to connect to the hypervisor

It took quite a while to figure this out.  libvirt has qemu's location hard coded in it.  Since the same command worked on other F11 systems I checked for qemu:

mjhammel(tty0)$ type qemu
qemu is /usr/bin/qemu
mjhammel(tty1)$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/qemu
qemu-system-x86-0.10.6-1.fc11.x86_64

Checking the other system I find that qemu wasn't installed:

mjhammel(tty0)$ rpm -qi qemu-system-x86
package qemu-system-x86 is not installed

Installed qemu-system-x86 and tried again:

mjhammel(tty0)$ sudo virsh –connect qemu:///system
Welcome to virsh, the virtualization interactive terminal.

Type:  'help' for help with commands
       'quit' to quit

virsh # 

It works.  The problems here are that

  • libvirt hard codes the locations for qemu
  • libvirt doesn't tell you why the connection fails

fixing the first might make this problem go away.  Fixing the second would make it easier to debug.
 

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