[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#1072769: libvirt-daemon: Cannot connect to hypervisor with user session after upgrade

[Corey Hickey]

I ran into this problem too, and I was able to troubleshoot it.

To the best of my understanding, this is caused by:
https://github.com/libvirt/libvirt/commit/64b966558cc6002fe150a0292a24eb2802a792c5#diff-69678f99af3e2f578ab1665eaaf3423314b3aa01a6e0b09a085b049e82b17903R102


         case VIR_FIREWALL_BACKEND_IPTABLES: {
             g_autofree char *iptablesInPath = virFindFileInPath(IPTABLES);

             if (iptablesInPath)
                 fwBackendSelected = true;
             break;
         }


Libvirt is searching the PATH for a program named 'iptables', and
failing because:
* iptables is in /usr/sbin
* /usr/sbin is not in the PATH for non-root users

Libvirtd now also supports nftables, but that fails for the same reason.


I don't know what is the most appropriate solution to this.

As a workaround, it is possible to override the PATH; for example:

PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH virsh list

After running this once, a libvirt daemon should remain resident, so
future virsh commands should not need the workaround, at least until the
daemon exits for any reason.

-Corey