Running android emulator during jenkins build

Question

I have installed Jenkins and configured a build job with emulator running during build. But when I execute the job, I get error message that jenkins user doesn't have permission to run kvm. How can I fix it.

$ android list target
[android] Using Android SDK: /opt/android/sdk
$ adb start-server
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5973 *
* daemon started successfully *
$ adb start-server
[android] Starting Android emulator
[android] Erasing existing emulator data...
$ emulator -ports 5971,5972 -prop persist.sys.language=en -prop persist.sys.country=US -avd hudson_en-US_160_1024x768_android-15_x86 -no-snapshot-load -no-snapshot-save -wipe-data
emulator: ERROR: x86 emulation currently requires hardware acceleration!
Please ensure KVM is properly installed and usable.
CPU acceleration status: This user doesn't have permissions to use KVM (/dev/kvm).
[android] Emulator did not appear to start; giving up
$ adb disconnect localhost:5972
[android] Stopping Android emulator
$ adb kill-server

Permissions

$ ls -l /dev/kvm
crw-rw----+ 1 root root 10, 232 May  6 13:46 /dev/kvm

$ groups jenkins
jenkins : jenkins

Easily

Run kvm-ok and see the output. Is it INFO: /dev/kvm exists KVM acceleration can be used or INFO: Your CPU does not support KVM extensions KVM acceleration can NOT be used ? It also could be that Enter your BIOS setup and enable Virtualization Technology, so then you should do as said :) – Greedy

As you've shown yourself, only root has permission to access /dev/kvm, and jenkins isn't in the root group. – Osmic

Answer 1

I have managed to fix the problem.

1. Install Qemu-KVM and cpu-checker:
   sudo apt install qemu-kvm cpu-checker
2. Check if KVM is available (as jenkins user):
   $ kvm-ok
INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used
3. Create group kvm and add jenkins to this group:
   addgroup kvm
usermod -a -G kvm jenkins
4. Change group ownership for /dev/kvm:
   chgrp kvm /dev/kvm
5. Create udev rule:
   $ sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/60-qemu-kvm.rules
KERNEL=="kvm", GROUP="kvm", MODE="0660"
6. Reboot

Easily

See https://mcmap.net/q/822783/-android-emulator-is-not-listening-to-port-while-starting. In ubuntu you should also add jenkins user to libvirt group. – Hands

Answer 2

On my CI (gitlab) this was missing on Ubuntu

usermod -a -G kvm gitlab-runner

or with Jenkins

usermod -a -G kvm jenkins

Pone