Can't connect to virt-manager

[SuperPrower]

Hi! I use Arch Linux, I have built virt-bootstrap from AUR and I have virt-manager installed from official repository, however, in OS container creation, I still get message about needing to install virt-bootstrap to enable OS container creation.

What can I possibly do wrong? Thanks in advance.

[crobinso]

Latest virt-manager release from last week is python3 only, maybe you don't have a python3 install of virt-bootstrap?

[SuperPrower]

I see, thanks. I'll try to build/get dependencies and virt-bootstrap myself rather than use AUR package. I'll report later on results.

[rst0git]

Hi @SuperPrower you can install virt-bootstrap on Arch as follows.
First you will need to install the following dependencies:

sudo pip install passlib
yaourt -S libguestfs python-libguestfs skopeo libvirt

Unfortunately, the AUR package for libvirt-sandbox is out of date, so it might be better to build it from source:

# Dependencies for libvirt-sandbox
yaourt -S libvirt-glib libselinux cpio gobject-introspection intltool dhclient xz-static-git
git clone git://libvirt.org/libvirt-sandbox.git
cd libvirt-sandbox/
./configure --prefix=/usr
make && sudo make install

Then you should be able to install virt-bootstrap with:

git clone https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-bootstrap
cd virt-bootstrap/
sudo python setup.py install

Please let me know if there are any issues. I will try to update the AUR packages for libvirt-sandbox and virt-bootstrap.

[SuperPrower]

There are some problems with latest git version of libvirt-sandbox.
First, there is no 'configure' in repository - I first had to run autoreconf -i
Then, I had to rename AUTHORS.in to AUTHORS as autoreconf required it.

I'm really confused about first steps since README in libvirt-sandbox repository since it says I just need to run ./configure, and refers to INSTALL file, but both are missing. (I guess I should report it to their bugzilla, not here, but I don't know if that's known problem or is it intentional - maybe they are changing toolkit or something)

Let me check with latest packaged version.

Also, do I really have to install xz-static-git? It's in conflict with xz, which I believe is essential to Arch Linux, and I was able to install virt-bootstrap from AUR without it.

[rst0git]

Hi @SuperPrower you are right! Neither the HACKING file, nor the README file in the libvirt-sandbox repository explains that you need to run ./autogen.sh before ./configure.

Thank you for pointing it out! Would you be interested in sending a patch to extend the build instructions?

The building process is similar to the one used for libvirt, which is described in README-hacking.

Also, do I really have to install xz-static-git? It's in conflict with xz, which I believe is essential to Arch Linux, and I was able to install virt-bootstrap from AUR without it.

I created xz-static-git after you opened this issue. It is essentially the same package as xz with the only exception that it installs static libraries (i.e. /lib/liblzma.a). They are required by libvirt-sandbox to enable lzma support. Currently, the AUR package configures libvirt-sandbox using the flag --without-lzma.

[SuperPrower]

Currently, the AUR package configures libvirt-sandbox using the flag --without-lzma.

Thing is, I can't get it working. Even if I try --with-lzma=no, it just says that it needs LZMA static libraries, like it ignores this option or something. I tried copying flags from AUR PKGBUILD, but it doesn't seem to change anything. I tried the same thing with 0.8.0 packed build, same problem. It only worked with version 0.6.0. Again, don't know if that's a problem or something intentional.

Also, I would like to note that when I try to make libvirt-sandbox, I get error that <rpc/rpc.h> is missing. I solved this by adding CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include/tirpc" to ./configure options

Also, I get error about undefined references to xdr_u_int and similar xdr_ stuff. I find a solution for it is adding -ltirpc to both the EXT2LIBS and the LDFLAGS in configure.

Then, python-libguestfs. It doesn't work on it's own. Trying to import it results in undefined symbol: PyString_FromStringAndSize, which is, according to google, occurs when you try to use python2 code in python3.

So I made a little research and found a mailing list thread in redhead, suggesting that reason is libguestfs. Seeing that AUR package required python2, I went and built it from sources. (version 1.38.6)...

...for which I needed to build supermin first, which required me to export OCAMLPARAM="safe-string=0,_" variable before make so that it wouldn't report error about string and bytes or something.

So, back to building libguestfs. Important thing during the configuration was those two lines:

checking for PyCapsule_New in -lc... yes
checking for PyString_AsString in -lc... no

According to mailing lists, this is correct report for python3.

So I went and ignored warnings about not using make install and did it. Finally, import guestfs reported no error.

I went back and ran sudo python3 setup.py install. Finally, I am able to create OS container in virt-manager. All that's left is to figure out where do I get that source URI.

I just hope that this train of thoughts may be helpful in... something. Stuff seems to be working for RHEL-based distros, so this is really just a problem about bunch of outdated AUR packages (supermin is said to require prelink which doesn't seem to exist anymore, bunch of packages depend on python2, and stuff). I really am not sure if I have enough experience or personal time to do something about it - I'll try to submit patch/update or two, but can't and don't want to promise anything, I'm not even sure about how do I find proper dependencies for package (I have, like, 1600 packages, do I create container to see what dependencies application needs or what?), or how or where to submit changes to PKGBUILD.