On 6/18/07, Richard W.M. Jones <rjones@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Andras Simon wrote: > When starting qemu-kvm as an ordinary user, I get > > open /dev/kvm: Permission denied > Could not initialize KVM, will disable KVM support > > Does that mean that it should be run by root (scary!) or that > /dev/kvm's permissions should be fixed? If the latter, does a simple > chmod suffice, or should one tamper with udev rules? KVM allows the user opening the device to arbitrarily lock large amounts of RAM so that it can't be swapped. That's normally something you don't want ordinary users to be doing ...
On the other hand, in the thread you pointed to, Avi Kivity says "Running kvm as a nonprivileged user is a supported and recommended way of working."
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.kvm.devel/3770 has more information. (Thanks to Dan Berrange who helped me to answer this question).
Reading that discussion gives me the impression that it's best to create a special kvm user and chmod /dev/kvm so that it can access it. Thanks for the pointer! Andras
