Error qemu-system-x86_64: -accel kvm: failed to initialize kvm: Permission denied

[Jānis Kangarooo]

Error starting domain: internal error: qemu unexpectedly closed the monitor: Could not access KVM kernel module: Permission denied
2024-03-07T18:24:56.855813Z qemu-system-x86_64: -accel kvm: failed to initialize kvm: Permission denied

Fix with command in terminal
chown root:kvm /dev/kvm

Then works again

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: virt-manager 1:4.0.0-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.5.0-21.21~22.04.1-generic 6.5.8
Uname: Linux 6.5.0-21-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Thu Mar 7 21:18:16 2024
InstallationDate: Installed on 2024-01-05 (62 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 22.04.3 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20230807.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: virt-manager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sergio Durigan Junior (sergiodj)]

Hello and thanks for reporting a bug.

You shouldn't need to manually chown /dev/kvm. On a fresh Ubuntu Jammy install, I see:

# ls -la /dev/kvm
crw-rw---- 1 root kvm 10, 232 Mar 7 19:41 /dev/kvm

After installing qemu and virt-manager, I still see the proper permissions/ownership, as expected. Therefore, it looks to me like this could be a local configuration issue. Could you please provide more details about what actions you performed before seeing the error? Also, note that if you're trying to execute qemu using a regular user then you will need to add this user to the kvm group.

Marking the bug as Incomplete for now until we get more details about it.

Thanks.