e1000e driver cannot acquire IP in Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 9.4 and other VMs shipped with kernel 4.15

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 9.4 and other virtual machines shipped with kernel 4.15 cannot acquire an IP address for attached e1000e nic.
• While customization of these virtual machines, you may see an error in the toolsDeployPkg.log file, similar to:

Customization command failed: Failed to create bus connection: No such file or directory.

Cause

This issue occurs due to some new code changes in e1000e driver in kernel 4.15.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 9.4 and other virtual machines shipped with kernel 4.15.

This issue tested as fixed in kernel version 4.17 and later.

Workaround:
To workaround this issue, use vmxnet3 type virtual network adapter.