Syslog being flooded with kernel "NET: Registered protocol family 38" messages.

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

Situation

Following a round of patching, it was observed that syslog was flooded with the following messages :

--- cut here ---
Nov 10 12:08:21 server kernel: [26068249.154815] NET: Unregistered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:21 server kernel: [26068249.154832] NET: Registered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:21 server kernel: [26068249.190805] NET: Unregistered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:23 server kernel: [26068251.200546] NET: Registered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:23 server kernel: [26068251.218140] NET: Unregistered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:23 server kernel: [26068251.218157] NET: Registered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:23 server kernel: [26068251.238126] NET: Unregistered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:23 server kernel: [26068251.238150] NET: Registered protocol family 38
Nov 10 12:08:23 server kernel: [26068251.266167] NET: Unregistered protocol family 38
--- cut here ---

Resolution

The servers were running in a VMWare virtualized environment, and installed with the vmware-tools package from VMWare.

Updating the vmware-tools from version 10.0.5-1, to vmware-tools version 10.1.0 resolved the problem.

Additional Information

Disclaimer

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