[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#765045: [libvirt-clients] error: authentication failed: no agent is available to authenticate

[Török Edwin]

Package: libvirt-clients
Version: 1.2.9-2
Severity: normal

--- Please enter the report below this line. ---

Both virsh and virt-manager got broken: they can no longer connect to the local hypervisor.
It used to work until last weekend' apt-get upgrade, did libvirt recently start to use policykit/consolekit?

$ virsh --connect qemu:///system --debug 4
error: failed to connect to the hypervisor
error: authentication failed: no agent is available to authenticate

$ virt-manager --debug --no-fork

[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (cli:187) Launched with command line: /usr/share/virt-manager/virt-manager --debug --no-fork
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (virt-manager:150) virt-manager version: 1.0.1
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (virt-manager:151) virtManager import: <module 'virtManager' from '/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/__init__.pyc'>
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (virt-manager:209) GTK version: 3.14.2
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (engine:484) libguestfs inspection support: False
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (systray:152) Showing systray: False
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (engine:231) About to connect to uris ['qemu:///system']
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (manager:216) Showing manager
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (engine:385) window counter incremented to 1
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (connection:995) Scheduling background open thread for qemu:///system
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (connection:1012) Background 'open connection' thread is running
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (connection:1063) Background open thread complete, scheduling notify
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (connection:1068) Notifying open result
[Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:37:43 virt-manager 19187] DEBUG (error:84) error dialog message:
summary=Unable to connect to libvirt.

authentication failed: no agent is available to authenticate
details=Unable to connect to libvirt.

authentication failed: no agent is available to authenticate

Libvirt URI is: qemu:///system

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/connection.py", line 1020, in _open_thread
    self._backend.open(self._do_creds_password)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/connection.py", line 158, in open
    open_flags)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/libvirt.py", line 105, in openAuth
    if ret is None:raise libvirtError('virConnectOpenAuth() failed')
libvirtError: authentication failed: no agent is available to authenticate
Gtk-Message: GtkDialog mapped without a transient parent. This is discouraged.

FWIW policykit is broken in Debian now (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=764511):
$ /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/polkit-kde-authentication-agent-1
QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.
QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.
New PolkitAgentListener  0x21d9a20 
Adding new listener  PolkitQt1::Agent::Listener(0x24e74f0) for  0x21d9a20 
"Cannot create unix session: No session for pid 19639" 

** (process:19639): CRITICAL **: polkit_agent_listener_register_with_options: assertion 'POLKIT_IS_SUBJECT (subject)' failed
"Cannot register authentication agent!" 

(process:19639): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

$ /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:19827): polkit-gnome-1-WARNING **: Unable to determine the session we are in: No session for pid 19827


Although 'pkexec' works:
$ pkexec bash
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.freedesktop.policykit.exec ===
Authentication is needed to run `/bin/bash' as the super user
Authenticating as: edwin,,, (edwin)
Password: 
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ===
root at debian:~# exit

--- System information. ---
Architecture: amd64
Kernel:       Linux 3.16-2-amd64

Debian Release: jessie/sid
  500 unstable        ftp.ro.debian.org 
  500 testing         ftp.ro.debian.org 
    1 experimental    ftp.ro.debian.org 

--- Package information. ---
Depends                     (Version) | Installed
=====================================-+-===============
libapparmor1           (>= 2.6~devel) | 2.8.0-8
libaudit1                (>= 1:2.2.1) | 1:2.4-1
libavahi-client3          (>= 0.6.16) | 
libavahi-common3          (>= 0.6.16) | 
libc6                       (>= 2.17) | 
libcap-ng0                            | 
libdbus-1-3                (>= 1.0.2) | 
libdevmapper1.02.1     (>= 2:1.02.20) | 
libgnutls-deb0-28       (>= 3.2.10-0) | 
libnl-3-200                (>= 3.2.7) | 
libnl-route-3-200          (>= 3.2.7) | 
libnuma1                              | 
libreadline6                 (>= 6.0) | 
libsasl2-2                            | 
libselinux1                 (>= 1.32) | 
libssh2-1                    (>= 1.0) | 
libsystemd-daemon0            (>= 31) | 
libvirt0                  (= 1.2.7-6) | 
libxml2                    (>= 2.7.4) | 
libyajl2                   (>= 2.0.4) | 


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