I decided to up the level of input. Please persevere. idella@karmic:~$ sudo rm /var/run/libvirtd.pid idella@karmic:~$ sudo gdb libvirtd GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0-ubuntu Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "i486-linux-gnu". For bug reporting instructions, please see: ... Reading symbols from /usr/sbin/libvirtd...(no debugging symbols found)...done. (gdb) run Starting program: /usr/sbin/libvirtd [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] 20:11:17.815: warning : qemudStartup:521 : Unable to create cgroup for driver: No such device or address Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. virDomainEventCallbackListFree (list=0x0) at domain_event.c:41 41 domain_event.c: No such file or directory. in domain_event.c (gdb) bt #0 virDomainEventCallbackListFree (list=0x0) at domain_event.c:41 #1 0x0808bece in ?? () #2 0x0808f992 in ?? () #3 0xb7e8a915 in virStateInitialize (privileged=1) at libvirt.c:786 #4 0x0805b5eb in ?? () #5 0xb7a1bb56 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/i686/nosegneg/libc.so.6 #6 0x08053d11 in ?? () comment: I suspect this relates to attempting to qemu /kvm, which it can't connect to in this xen environ. idella@karmic:~$ gdb virsh GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0-ubuntu Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "i486-linux-gnu". For bug reporting instructions, please see: ... Reading symbols from /usr/bin/virsh...(no debugging symbols found)...done. (gdb) run Starting program: /usr/bin/virsh [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] Connecting to uri: qemu:///session (Here it hangs, I interrupt) ^Z Program received signal SIGTSTP, Stopped (user). 0xb7fe2416 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb) run -c qemu:///system The program being debugged has been started already. Start it from the beginning? (y or n) y Starting program: /usr/bin/virsh -c qemu:///system [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] Connecting to uri: qemu:///system error: unable to connect to '/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock': No such file or directory error: failed to connect to the hypervisor Program exited with code 01. (gdb) run -c xen Starting program: /usr/bin/virsh -c xen [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] Connecting to uri: xen error: unable to connect to '/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock': No such file or directory error: failed to connect to the hypervisor Program exited with code 01. however idella@karmic:~$ sudo gdb virsh GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0-ubuntu Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying" and "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "i486-linux-gnu". For bug reporting instructions, please see: ... Reading symbols from /usr/bin/virsh...(no debugging symbols found)...done. (gdb) run Starting program: /usr/bin/virsh [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] Connecting to uri: qemu:///session error: unable to connect to '/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock': No such file or directory error: failed to connect to the hypervisor Program exited with code 01. (gdb) run -c xen Starting program: /usr/bin/virsh -c xen [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] Connecting to uri: xen [New Thread 0xb78d5b70 (LWP 14327)] Welcome to virsh, the virtualization interactive terminal. Type: 'help' for help with commands 'quit' to quit virsh # It goes in. virt-manager responds similarly. Does connect using sudo, or gksu, which does make sense. I think I'm going to install a whole separate 64 version and duplicate this setup and see what it yields. It's just paralised the way it is.