Using Virt-Manager on Debian
Virt-Manager is an awesome front end for running QEMU VMs on top of KVM. This is a great alternative to VirutalBox and since the latest version of Virtualbox has been moved to the “contrib” section in Debian (due to a non-free compiler that is required to builds the BIOS) it is one of the only 100% free software GUIs for managing virtual machines. To get virt-manager working debian you will need the following:
apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin virt-manager
Could not access KVM kernel module: Permission denied failed to initialize KVM: Permission denied
user:group is defined in /etc/libvirtr/qemu.conf 1 by default this is nobody so this is why the error message occurs. In order to fix this, edit this file and add your username and group to this file. The file should end up looking something like this:# The user for QEMU processes run by the system instance. It can be 215 # specified as a user name or as a user id. The qemu driver will try to 216 # parse this value first as a name and then, if the name doesn't exist, 217 # as a user id. 218 # 219 # Since a sequence of digits is a valid user name, a leading plus sign 220 # can be used to ensure that a user id will not be interpreted as a user 221 # name. 222 # 223 # Some examples of valid values are: 224 # 225 # user = "qemu" # A user named "qemu" 226 # user = "+0" # Super user (uid=0) 227 # user = "100" # A user named "100" or a user with uid=100 228 # 229 #user = "root" 230 user = "username" 231 # The group for QEMU processes run by the system instance. It can be 232 # specified in a similar way to user. 233 #group = "root" 234 group = "groupname"
systemctl restart libvirtd.service
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- Lev Lazinskiy
- Lev Lazinskiy
- Lev Lazinskiy
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- Terminal RSS Reader With Nom
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass from Fernando Borretti
- Make AI Boring Again from charity.wtf
- The logical destination of LLMs from Andy Bell
- Revised rules of engineering leadership. from Irrational Exuberance
- The circus freaks of open source from Drew DeVault's blog
- Clanker: A Word For The Machine from Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
- I ran a half-marathon! from gluecko.se
- My Running Tips from Kevin Bell's Blog
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Om Malik 1966-2026
(Note: This is a special edition of The Torment Nexus, dedicated to my friend Om Malik, who passed away due to congestive heart failure at the age of 59. I wrote this on my blog, but I thought some people who subscribe might also be interested. If you aren...
via The Torment Nexus June 27, 2026Pluralistic: Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers (27 Jun 2026)
Today's links Zuckerberg's increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers: Under no circumstances should you rush out and read the book that prompted Mark Zuckerberg to demand $111m and eternal auctorial silence. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object...
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow June 27, 2026I'm in bed, I have the windows wide open, and the fan on full blast, and I'm actually starting to feel cold. I'm very glad we're finally reaching the end of this heatwave.
via Chris Hannah June 27, 2026Generated by openring