B.15. No Guest Virtual Machines are Present when libvirtd is Started
- Symptom
- The libvirt daemon is successfully started, but no guest virtual machines appear to be present.
# virsh list --all Id Name State ---------------------------------------------------- #
- Investigation
- There are various possible causes of this problem. Performing these tests will help to determine the cause of this situation:
- Verify KVM kernel modules
- Verify that KVM kernel modules are inserted in the kernel:
# lsmod | grep kvm kvm_intel 121346 0 kvm 328927 1 kvm_intel
If you are using an AMD machine, verify thekvm_amdkernel modules are inserted in the kernel instead, using the similar commandlsmod | grep kvm_amdin the root shell.If the modules are not present, insert them using themodprobe <modulename>command.Note
Although it is uncommon, KVM virtualization support may be compiled into the kernel. In this case, modules are not needed. - Verify virtualization extensions
- Verify that virtualization extensions are supported and enabled on the host:
# egrep "(vmx|svm)" /proc/cpuinfo flags : fpu vme de pse tsc ... svm ... skinit wdt npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save flags : fpu vme de pse tsc ... svm ... skinit wdt npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save
Enable virtualization extensions in your hardware's firmware configuration within the BIOS setup. Refer to your hardware documentation for further details on this. - Verify client URI configuration
- Verify that the URI of the client is configured as desired:
# virsh uri vbox:///system
For example, this message shows the URI is connected to the VirtualBox hypervisor, not QEMU, and reveals a configuration error for a URI that is otherwise set to connect to a QEMU hypervisor. If the URI was correctly connecting to QEMU, the same message would appear instead as:# virsh uri qemu:///system
This situation occurs when there are other hypervisors present, which libvirt may speak to by default.
- Solution
- After performing these tests, use the following command to view a list of guest virtual machines:
# virsh list --all
