In order to add some useful information I had the same problem.
Even after apply Jason suggestion, the error remained. My log presented the following error:
root@localhost:/opt/cowrie/log# cat cowrie.err
Unhandled Error
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/application/app.py", line 604, in parseOptions
usage.Options.parseOptions(self, options)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/python/usage.py", line 261, in parseOptions
for (cmd, short, parser, doc) in self.subCommands:
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/application/app.py", line 621, in subCommands
for plug in sorted(plugins, key=attrgetter('tapname')):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/plugin.py", line 209, in getPlugins
allDropins = getCache(package)
--- <exception caught here> ---
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/plugin.py", line 167, in getCache
provider = pluginModule.load()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/python/modules.py", line 383, in load
return self.pathEntry.pythonPath.moduleLoader(
self.name)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/python/_reflectpy3.py", line 266, in namedAny
topLevelPackage = _importAndCheckStack(trialname)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twisted/python/_reflectpy3.py", line 213, in _importAndCheckStack
reraise(excValue, excTraceback)
File "/opt/cowrie/twisted/plugins/cowrie_plugin.py", line 46, in <module>
from cowrie.core.config import readConfigFile
File "/opt/cowrie/cowrie/core/config.py", line 8, in <module>
import configparser
exceptions.ImportError: No module named configparser
The message is clear, so I just needed to install the configparser (apt-get install python-configparser) and it was solved like a charm.