libvirt users - Oct 2013 - passthrough shared dir with kvm: need to run as root?

Hi,

I need to mount a directory from the host in a guest, with passthough (ie,
owner id and group set in the guest should be preserved and written on the
host).
I've read that for this to work, qemu needs to be run as root. Is there a
way to start qemu as root via libvirt?

Thanks

raph