Learn how to resolve the Failed to initialize KVM Permission Denied order. Our KVM Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

Failed to initialize KVM Permission Denied | Troubleshooting

If you have been running into a “Permission denied” error while trying to access the KVM kernel module in QEMU, you’re not alone. This issue often pops up due to incorrect permissions.

Today, we are going to take a look at the common causes behind the errors and how to fix them.

The error message usually looks like this:

Could not access KVM kernel module: Permission denied
qemu-system-x86_64: failed to initialize KVM: Permission denied

This lets us know that the KVM userspace component is unable to access the KVM driver, usually due to incorrect permissions.

Troubleshooting Tips

1. Check Group Memberships:

   First, make sure the user is a member of the KVM and libvirt groups. Then, make the needed changes as seen below:

   sudo usermod -G -a kvm "username"
sudo usermod -G -a libvirtd "username"


   After making these changes, our experts recommend launching a new shell or re-logging to apply the group membership changes.
2. Verify Device Node Permissions:

   Then, check the permissions on the `/dev/kvm` device with this command:

   ls -ld /dev/kvm

   The correct permissions should be 660 with root:kvm ownership. We can modify this as seen here:

   sudo chmod 660 /dev/kvm
3. Udev Rules:

   Next, confirm that the correct udev rules are in place. So, create a file, e.g., `65-kvm.rules`, in `/etc/udev/rules.d/` with the content:

   KERNEL=="kvm", NAME="%k", GROUP="kvm", MODE="0660"

   Then, reload the rules without rebooting:

   udevadm control –reload-rules

   After that, restart the libvirt service:

   systemctl restart libvirtd
4. Adjusting Device Node Permissions:

   Alternatively, we can try changing the permissions on `/dev/kvm` to a more relaxed set:

   sudo chmod +666 /dev/kvm

   Although this is not recommended for security reasons, it may be suitable for a home setup.
5. Adding User to kvm Group:

   To handle permissions, we have to add the unprivileged user to the kvm group:

   sudo usermod -a -G kvm yourUserName

   Our experts recommend not using We have to avoid using `chmod 666` as it poses security risks.

Let us know in the comments which one of the above troubleshooting tips helped you resolve the issue.

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Conclusion

In brief, our Support Experts introduced us to different troubleshooting tips to fix the “Failed to initialize KVM Permission Denied” error.