lbvirt cannot start VM due to missing kvm-spice in /etc/vmbuilder/libvirt/libvirtxml.tmpl

[TJ]

Using Ubuntu 12.04.2 Precise on amd64 with kvm_intel, libvirt and vmbuilder.

Building VMs with vmbuilder using, e.g:

$ sudo vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite precise --flavour virtual --arch i386 -o --libvirt qemu:///system --hostname vm-ubuntu-precise-playpen

followed by:

$ virsh -d 0 -c qemu:///system start vm-ubuntu-precise-playpen

results in a failure:

error: Failed to start domain vm-ubuntu-precise-playpen
error: internal error Process exited while reading console log output: Supported machines are:
pc Standard PC (alias of pc-1.0)
pc-1.0 Standard PC (default)
pc-0.14 Standard PC
pc-0.13 Standard PC
pc-0.12 Standard PC
pc-0.11 Standard PC, qemu 0.11
pc-0.10 Standard PC, qemu 0.10
isapc ISA-only PC

I eventually tracked this down to the libvirt domain definition using

<emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator>

instead of

<emulator>/usr/bin/kvm-spice</emulator>

editing that line using:

$ virsh -d 0 -c qemu:///system edit vm-ubuntu-precise-playpen

allows the VM to start correctly.

The problem stems from the libvirt template installed by vmbuilder at "/etc/vmbuilder/libvirt/libvirtxml.tmpl" using the wrong emulator. It should be "/usr/bin/kvm-spice" not "/usr/bin/kvm".

A simple fix is:

$ sudo sed -i 's,\(/usr/bin/kvm\),\1-spice,' /etc/vmbuilder/libvirt/libvirtxml.tmpl