Public bug reported:
I noticed that qemu-guest-agent does not start automatically in VMs
using image ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.img (see exact versions
at the end) in a libvirt/qemu/kvm VM. I would expect it to start
automatically after each boot.
This is what I first noticed from the Debian hypervisor host:
$ vm=test0 ; virsh domifaddr --source agent "$vm" | awk "/ $( virsh dumpxml
"$vm" | xmlstarlet select -t -v '/domain/devices/interface[1]/mac/@address' ) /
{ print \$4 }"
error: Failed to query for interfaces addresses
error: Guest agent is not responding: QEMU guest agent is not connected
Then inside the Ubuntu VM I found qemu-guest-agent not running:
$ ssh test0
$ sudo -s
# systemctl status qemu-guest-agent
○ qemu-guest-agent.service - QEMU Guest Agent
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/qemu-guest-agent.service; static)
Active: inactive (dead)
# ps aux | egrep qemu-ga | grep -v grep
[nothing]
I could start it manually:
# systemctl start qemu-guest-agent
# ps aux | egrep qemu-ga | grep -v grep
root 12841 0.0 0.1 80712 4096 ? Ssl 09:32 0:00
/usr/sbin/qemu-ga
However I guess it was not autostarted because the systemd service could
not be enabled:
# systemctl enable qemu-guest-agent
Synchronizing state of qemu-guest-agent.service with SysV service script with
/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable qemu-guest-agent
The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy=, RequiredBy=, UpheldBy=,
Also=, or Alias= settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance= for
template units). This means they are not meant to be enabled or disabled using
systemctl.
·
Possible reasons for having these kinds of units are:
• A unit may be statically enabled by being symlinked from another unit's
.wants/, .requires/, or .upholds/ directory.
• A unit's purpose may be to act as a helper for some other unit which has
a requirement dependency on it.
• A unit may be started when needed via activation (socket, path, timer,
D-Bus, udev, scripted systemctl call, ...).
• In case of template units, the unit is meant to be enabled with some
instance name specified.
If I added a WantedBy, then I could enable it and it got autostarted
after a reboot:
# vim /usr/lib/systemd/system/qemu-guest-agent.service
...
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
# systemctl enable qemu-guest-agent
Synchronizing state of qemu-guest-agent.service with SysV service script with
/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable qemu-guest-agent
Created symlink
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/qemu-guest-agent.service →
/usr/lib/systemd/system/qemu-guest-agent.service.
# systemctl reboot
[wait, ssh again, become root]
# systemctl status qemu-guest-agent
● qemu-guest-agent.service - QEMU Guest Agent
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/qemu-guest-agent.service; enabled;
preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2025-03-12 09:36:43 UTC; 3min 13s ago
Main PID: 878 (qemu-ga)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 4654)
Memory: 1.3M (peak: 1.6M)
CPU: 10ms
CGroup: /system.slice/qemu-guest-agent.service
└─878 /usr/sbin/qemu-ga
márc 12 09:36:43 test0 systemd[1]: Started qemu-guest-agent.service -
QEMU Guest Agent.
I reproduced this with the newest ubuntu 24.04 cloud image release:
# cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=24.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=noble
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS"
Which I downloaded from:
https://cloud-
images.ubuntu.com/releases/24.04/release/ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg-
amd64.img
At download time this pointed to:
https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/noble/release-20250228/
The qemu-guest-agent package was autoinstalled from could-init user-
data, its version was:
# dpkg -l qemu-guest-agent
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-================-=====================-============-=================================
ii qemu-guest-agent 1:8.2.2+ds-0ubuntu1.6 amd64 Guest-side qemu-system
agent
** Affects: qemu (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2102093
Title:
qemu-guest-agent does not start automatically
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