internal error: Failed to initialize a valid firewall backend

[Matthias Klose]

on a current wily environment:

trying to create a virtual machine using the instructions from https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/libvirt.html

$ virt-install -n trusty_buildd -r 4096 --disk path=/mnt/ssd/images/trusty_buildd.img,bus=virtio,size=80 -c Downloads/trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img --network network=default,model=virtio --graphics vnc,listen=0.0.0.0 --noautoconsole -v

Installation wird gestartet...
ERROR Angeforderte Operation ist nicht gültig: network 'default' is not active

$ virsh net-list --all
 Name State Autostart Persistent
----------------------------------------------------------
 default inactive yes yes

$ virsh net-start default
error: Failed to start network default
error: internal error: Failed to initialize a valid firewall backend

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

seen when not having libvirt-bin's recommends installed:

  ebtables gawk libxml2-utils

so at least one of these missing causes the failure

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

I suspect this is a duplicate of bug 1512749

Are you using network-manager?

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

yes, network-manager is enabled by default on desktop installations.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

please let us know if updating (and then perhaps rebooting) fixes it for good.

[Matthias Klose (doko)]

why do you ask for a reboot, when the issue already is analyzed? It needs a fix, not a reboot.

[Serge Hallyn (serge-hallyn)]

Because AIUI the upgrade will install the fix but not restart network manager.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

This isn't a dupe of 1512749. It is caused by one of the recommends actually needing to be a depends.

I'll take care of this.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package libvirt - 1.2.16-2ubuntu13

---------------
libvirt (1.2.16-2ubuntu13) xenial; urgency=medium

  * debian/control: switch ebtables from Recommends to Depends or default
    configuration network doesn't get created. (LP: #1505576)

 -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Thu, 05 Nov 2015 15:14:04 -0600