RedHat and CentOS virtual machines show warning messages when starting the udev daemon

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• After upgrading VMware Tools, RedHat or CentOS, virtual machines show warnings when starting the udev daemon.
• You see these messages in dmesg or while booting the virtual machine:
  
  Starting udev:
  udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'SUBSYSTEMS'
  udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{vendor}'
  udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{model}'
  udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'SUBSYSTEMS'
  udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{vendor}'
  udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{model}'
  
  
• You need to press Ctrl+C to bypass udev daemon to finish the boot process.

Environment

VMware Workstation 9.x (Windows)
VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware Workstation 8.x (Linux)
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware Workstation 10.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion 3.x
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion 7.x
VMware Fusion 4.x
VMware Workstation 7.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 8.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 7.x (Windows)
VMware Fusion 5.x

Resolution

These warnings are harmless. To resolve this issue, disable the warnings.

To disable the warnings:

1. Comment out unused lines in the /etc/udev/rules.d/99-vmware-scsi-udev.rule file. For example:
   
   
   • For Debian systems, comment out the line:
     
     #ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi", ATTRS{vendor}=="VMware " , ATTRS{model}=="Virtual disk ", RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 180 >/sys$DEVPATH/device/timeout'"
     
     
   • For SuSE or Ubuntu systems, comment out the line:
     
     #ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi", ATTRS{vendor}=="VMware, " , ATTRS{model}=="VMware Virtual S", RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 180 >/sys$DEVPATH/device/timeout'"
     
     Note: You may need to modify the Red Hat rule, as per the next bullet point (see the changes in the SYSFS vendor and model fields).
     
     
   • For Redhat systems, change the line from:
     
     ACTION=="add", BUS=="scsi", SYSFS{vendor}=="VMware, " , SYSFS{model}=="VMware Virtual S", RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 180 >/sys$DEVPATH/device/timeout'"
     
     To:
     
     ACTION=="add", BUS=="scsi", SYSFS{vendor}=="VMware " , SYSFS{model}=="Virtual disk ", RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 180 >/sys$DEVPATH/device/timeout'"
     
     
     
2. Update the /usr/lib/vmware-tools/configurator/udev/99-vmware-scsi-udev.rules, so changes persist after kernel and VMware Tools upgrades.
3. Save the changes and reboot the virtual machine.

In addition to commenting out the lines, ensure that you implement the recommendations in Timekeeping best practices for Linux guests (1006427).

Additional Information

Timekeeping best practices for Linux guests