While I couldn't test on newer Ubuntu versions due to lack a spare box, I think I found a solution / work-around to this: disabling virt-aa-helper. Before I start, here's some background information about it, taken from the AppArmor documentation:

"When a VM is started, libvirtd decides whether to ask virt-aa-helper to create a new profile or modify an existing one. If no profile exists, libvirtd asks virt-aa-helper to generate the new base profile, in this case /etc/apparmor.d/libvirt/libvirt-a22e3930-d87a-584e-22b2-1d8950212bac, which it does based on /etc/apparmor.d/libvirt/TEMPLATE. Notice, the new profile has a profile name that is based on the guest’s UUID. Once the base profile is created, virt-aa-helper works the same for create and modify: virt-aa-helper will determine what files are required for the guest to run (eg kernel, initrd, disk, serial, etc), updates /etc/apparmor.d/libvirt/libvirt-a22e3930-d87a-584e-22b2-1d8950212bac.files, then loads the profile into the kernel."


Disabling it is pretty simple: you just have to set the security driver in /etc/libvirtd/qemu.conf to "none". Like this:
security_driver = "none"


After that, restart libvirt:
/etc/init.d/libvirt-bin restart

Now it starts without calling virt-aa-helper:

virsh # start 'ubuntu_12_04 with spaces'
Domain ubuntu_12_04 with spaces started

You may want to add that information to the documentation about this ... With a note that this may decrease the system's security.


On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 11:00 PM, Otavio Rodolfo Piske <angusyoung@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 10:40 PM, Aline Manera <alinefm@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
On 01/23/2014 08:57 PM, Otavio Rodolfo Piske wrote:
I see your point. I did a quick research and it seems to be a limitation on virt-aa-helper:

root@orpiske:/etc/libvirt/qemu# cat ubuntu_12_04\ with\ spaces.xml | /usr/lib/libvirt/virt-aa-helper -d -p 0 -r -u libvirt-61d77fad-bb1f-49fa-93e1-2b70a5cb8f4c ; echo $?
virt-aa-helper: error: bad name
virt-aa-helper: error: could not get VM definition
1

Whereas, this works:

root@orpiske:/etc/libvirt/qemu# cat ubuntu_12_04.xml | /usr/lib/libvirt/virt-aa-helper -d -p 0 -r -u libvirt-d020c07a-b8d5-40f3-b02b-3df5ed6d06b3 ; echo $?
virt-aa-helper:
/etc/apparmor.d/libvirt/libvirt-d020c07a-b8d5-40f3-b02b-3df5ed6d06b3.files
virt-aa-helper:
  "/var/log/libvirt/**/ubuntu_12_04.log" w,
  "/var/lib/libvirt/**/ubuntu_12_04.monitor" rw,
  "/var/run/libvirt/**/ubuntu_12_04.pid" rwk,
  "/run/libvirt/**/ubuntu_12_04.pid" rwk,
  "/var/run/libvirt/**/*.tunnelmigrate.dest.ubuntu_12_04" rw,
  "/run/libvirt/**/*.tunnelmigrate.dest.ubuntu_12_04" rw,
  "/var/lib/libvirt/images/d020c07a-b8d5-40f3-b02b-3df5ed6d06b3-0.img" rw,
  "/home/orpiske/vms/isos/ubuntu-12.04.3-desktop-i386.iso" r,
  # don't audit writes to readonly files
  deny "/home/orpiske/vms/isos/ubuntu-12.04.3-desktop-i386.iso" w,

0

I decided to dig further and I took a look at virt-aa-helper source code and it does, indeed, check if the name does not contain spaces (as well as one of /, [, ] and *). Because of that, it seems that it's unable to load/recreate (?) the profile.


Do you mean libvirt blocks domain name with those characters?

More specifically: I mean that virt-aa-helper does.

 

As Cristian mentioned, it seems to be a Ubuntu only problem.

I couldn't check on other distros, as I only have Ubuntu at hand, but I believe this might be the case.
 

Which Ubuntu version are you using?
What is the libvirt version?

I am running Ubuntu 12.10 with libvirt 0.9.13:

# orpiske at orpiske in ~/code/foss/libvirt [20:44:08]

$ libvirtd --version
libvirtd (libvirt) 0.9.13

I am using Ubuntu's libvirtd. This might explain why it works on your system and not on mine. For instance, this is what happens when I try to do the same here:

virsh # start 'ubuntu_12_04 with spaces'
error: Failed to start domain ubuntu_12_04 with spaces
error: internal error cannot load AppArmor profile 'libvirt-d020c07a-b8d5-40f3-b02b-3df5ed6d06b3'

So, my understanding is that this is specific to Ubuntu with the system's default libvirt. I'll try to setup another system using a newer Ubuntu version, using the system's default libvirt and check what happens.

 

I find this problem on Ubuntu 12.10 and libvirt 0.9.13

alinefm@alinefm:~/libvirt$ libvirtd --version
libvirtd (libvirt) 0.9.13

But I've just checked the latest libvirt (from source code) on same Ubuntu node and I was able to create and start a domain (which name contains spaces)
The current upstream version is 1.2.1

alinefm@alinefm:~/libvirt$ sudo ./daemon/libvirtd -d
alinefm@alinefm:~/libvirt$ sudo tools/virsh -c qemu:///system
Welcome to lt-virsh, the virtualization interactive terminal.

Type:  'help' for help with commands
       'quit' to quit

virsh # list --all
 Id    Name                           State
----------------------------------------------------
 -     fedora18-iso-stream            shut off
 -     Fedora19                       shut off
 -     openSUSE-13-1                  shut off
 -     RHEL6.5                        shut off
 -     Ubuntu13-10                    shut off
 -     with spaces                    shut off

virsh # start 'with spaces'
Domain with spaces started

virsh # destroy 'with spaces'
Domain with spaces destroyed





Does it make sense to you? And, if yes, what would you suggest as an appropriate work-around in this case?


On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Aline Manera <alinefm@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
On 01/22/2014 07:19 PM, Crístian Viana wrote:
As I added to the GitHub issue page (https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/issues/306#issuecomment-33068988), I don't think having a space in a VM's name is a problem. I am able to create a VM named "hello world" using Kimchi and virsh.

We should not add a limitation like this one to Kimchi (i.e. restricting the VM name) if there's not a real reason to.

Agree.

Seems this problem is on a deeper layer.
In a quick search on the internet I found a lot of forums related to "libvirtError: internal error cannot load AppArmor profile"
We need to investigate more to find the root cause.


Am 22-01-2014 19:01, schrieb Otavio R. Piske:
From: "Otavio R. Piske" <angusyoung@gmail.com>

Kimchi fails to start the guest OS if the user names it with spaces. As pointed in the issue #306, other VM management interfaces prevent the user from creating a guest OS if the name contain invalid characters.

This patch adds a validation logic that prevents the user from naming a Guest OS with anything other than alphanumeric chars, '-', '.' or '_'.

Signed-off-by: Otavio R. Piske <angusyoung@gmail.com>

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--
Otavio R. Piske
http://orpiske.net




--
Otavio R. Piske
http://orpiske.net



--
Otavio R. Piske
http://orpiske.net