Linux virtual machine continuously reports errors related to the CD-ROM drive

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

These errors are displayed by the Linux hald-addon-storage daemon (hald) that detects change of device state, like media insertion and removal.

If the configuration file of a virtual machine is set to use the client CD-ROM device and the user accesses it from a local CD-ROM, the virtual machine detects the CD-ROM insertion and acts on it.

Symptoms:

• Linux virtual machine continuously displays errors related to CD-ROM drive.
• You see errors similar to:
  
  Nov 18 14:35:06 coweuvvm03 kernel: ide: failed opcode was: 0xec
  Nov 18 14:40:06 coweuvvm03 kernel: hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
  Nov 18 14:40:06 coweuvvm03 kernel: hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x

Resolution

There are three resolutions. Choose the resolution that best suits your environment.

Resolution 1

1. Power down the virtual machine.
2. Edit the settings of the virtual machine, making sure the virtual machine settings for CD-ROM are set to host device and not client device.

Resolution 2

Within the virtual machine, change the hald polling policy so it does not act on each CD-ROM insertion/ejection.

Example: storage.automount_enabled_hint=false

Note: In most Linux distribution, this can be changed in the /etc/hal/fdi/policy/local.fdi file or /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi file.

Resolution 3:

Edit file /etc/smartd.conf and comment out the following line:
DEVICESCAN -H -m root