Bug 516120

Summary: unable to start guest: qemu: could not open serial device 'pty'
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Eric Paris <eparis>
Component: libvirtAssignee: Daniel Veillard <veillard>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: rawhideCC: berrange, clalance, crobinso, dowdle, gczarcinski, itamar, markmc, veillard, virt-maint
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-09-04 07:51:04 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
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Description Flags
virt-manager.log
none
guest.log none

Description Eric Paris 2009-08-06 19:52:40 UTC
virt-manager-0.8.0-1.fc12.noarch
libvirt-0.7.0-2.fc12.x86_64
libvirt-python-0.7.0-2.fc12.x86_64
libvirt-client-0.7.0-2.fc12.x86_64

selinux is permissive.

create a new vm in virt-manager
set the install to an iso
do not create storage
try to start the vm
backtrace

Error starting domain: internal error unable to start guest: qemu: could not open serial device 'pty

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/engine.py", line 567, in run_domain
    vm.startup()
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/domain.py", line 652, in startup
    self.vm.create()
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libvirt.py", line 293, in create
    if ret == -1: raise libvirtError ('virDomainCreate() failed', dom=self)
libvirtError: internal error unable to start guest: qemu: could not open serial device 'pty'

Comment 1 Mark McLoughlin 2009-08-11 18:04:07 UTC
Could you include ~/.virt-manager/virt-manager.log and /var/log/libvirt/qemu/$guest.log ?

Comment 2 Mark McLoughlin 2009-08-11 18:34:50 UTC
Hmm, this sounds similar to bug #511179

Comment 3 Eric Paris 2009-08-11 19:42:52 UTC
Created attachment 357068 [details]
virt-manager.log

Comment 4 Eric Paris 2009-08-11 19:43:32 UTC
Created attachment 357069 [details]
guest.log

Comment 5 Eric Paris 2009-08-11 19:45:17 UTC
Side note, since virt-manager is unusable as a non-root user this is done by logging into X as a normal user and using sudo -s to get root.  (I don't know if that is in any way relevant)

Comment 6 Gene Czarcinski 2009-08-11 20:44:55 UTC
I am running on Fedora 11 with the "preview" set which includes libvirt-0.7.0-3.fc11 (BTW< shouldn't that be "f11" rather than "fc11") an qemu-kvm.

I sure hope someone is working on the fix for this problem!

Right now I cannot run any linux virtual machine or define one.  Even if I manually edit the guest xml file to add the pts definitions.  Both virt-manager AND virsh start do not work ... both get the same error.

Comment 7 Mark McLoughlin 2009-08-14 17:09:16 UTC
Okay, this is openpty() in qemu-kvm process failing

You say selinux is permissive, so it's not #515521

The qemu-kvm process is now running as the qemu user. What permissions does /dev/pts have?

Comment 8 Scott Dowdle 2009-08-20 16:44:58 UTC
I too am experiencing this bug.  I try to start any of the three VMs I have and I get:

libvirtError: internal error unable to start guest: qemu: could not open monitor device 'pty'

I assume this is related to the recent qemu updates in Fedora 11?

qemu-common-0.10.6-1.fc11.x86_64
qemu-img-0.10.6-1.fc11.x86_64
qemu-system-x86-0.10.6-1.fc11.x86_64

I have tried running as a regular user and being prompted for the root password and running it directly as root... and I still get the same error.

Comment 9 Mark McLoughlin 2009-08-21 09:15:39 UTC
Scott: could you try reverting to 0.10.5-3 and see if that helps:

  https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=106744

if not, it rules out 0.10.6 as the cause

Also, what permissions are on your /dev/ptmx

They should be:

  $> ls -l /dev/ptmx 
  crw-rw-rw-. 1 root tty 5, 2 2009-08-21 10:12 /dev/ptmx
  $> ls -lZ /dev/ptmx 
  crw-rw-rw-. root tty system_u:object_r:ptmx_t:s0      /dev/ptmx

Eric had different permissions and was going to try correcting them to see if that helps

Comment 10 Eric Paris 2009-08-21 15:01:28 UTC
With 'fixed' perms and ownership like you show in comment #9 I am thus far unable to reproduce this problem.

libvirt-0.7.0-6.fc12.x86_64

Comment 11 Scott Dowdle 2009-08-21 23:13:44 UTC
Mark McLoughlin,

I was unable to view that koji page for some reason.  I accepted the cert but then got an SSL nego. error.  In any event I saw fix that one of the SELinux guys came up with in a related bug report that involved changing how devpts is mounted (which is probably what that koji page documents?) and that worked for me.

Comment 12 Mark McLoughlin 2009-09-04 07:51:04 UTC
Okay, closing this then

If anyone knows how /dev/ptmx or /dev/pts came to have incorrect permissions, please let us know