[libvirt-users] Start of libvirtd fails with error "undefined symbol: __virAlloc"

[Eric Blake]

On 10/24/2011 10:02 AM, Langenbach, Steffen wrote:
> Hello List
>
> like described in the topic I have a problem with starting the libvirtd. I'm a complete newbie with libvirtd, today I heard the first time that such a daemon exists after I get the message that our webserver isn't running (a former colleague has installed this system).
> We have the following configuration: A Ubuntu based host on which our webserver runs within a qemu virtual machine.
> The following happens: Yesterday the host restarted (at the moment we don't know the reason) and since this restart libvirtd did not start up.
> How I found that out: When I try to start the virtual machine with "virsh start z-web" I get the error:
> "Connecting to uri: qemu:///session
> libvir: Remote error : unable to connect to '/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock': No such file or directory
> error: failed to connect to the hypervisor"
> As explained, I'm a total Newbie with libvirtd. So as far as I know, the libvirt-sock is generated by libvirtd when it's running. I don't know the right way how to start libvirtd. I tried it by just typing "libvirtd", but that generates this error: "libvirtd: symbol lookup error: libvirtd: undefined symbol: __virAlloc".

Generally, you would start libvirtd via your system's service management 
utilities, such as 'service libvirtd start', rather than directly 
invoking the binary.  That way, it gets started with the right 
privileges and daemonization patterns.

Your particular error makes it sound like you have a botched 
installation; generally, a symbol not found message is an indication 
that the libvirtd binary depends on libvirt.so, but that your ld.so 
can't find the proper version of libvirt.so in any of the usual places. 
  Are you using a distro build (if so, reinstall the libvirt package) or 
a self-built binary (if so, double-check your configuration and 
installation parameters).

>
> I can't find any log-entry that gives me more information about this error.

For an entry point not found error, there won't be any log message - 
your libvirtd (actually, ld.so) was dying even before it gets to main().

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake at redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org