Irrelevant Firmware Updates
fwupd (the Firmware Update Daemon) is an incredibly useful background service in Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. It communicates with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) to check for, download, and install BIOS/UEFI updates, SSD firmware updates, and peripheral (mouse/keyboard) firmware updates directly from the OS, without needing to reboot into a Windows partition.
However, fwupd is designed exclusively for physical hardware. If you are running Ubuntu inside a Virtual Machine (like VMware, VirtualBox, or KVM), there is no physical motherboard, BIOS, or NVMe drive for the guest OS to update. The virtual hardware is managed entirely by the host hypervisor. Leaving the fwupd service running in a VM causes it to periodically wake up, poll virtual devices that cannot be updated, and occasionally log errors or warnings to syslog. Disabling it reclaims a small amount of resources.
How to Disable the Fwupd Service
You can permanently stop and disable the daemon using standard systemd commands.
- Open your Ubuntu Terminal (or connect to your VM via SSH).
- Stop the currently running service:
sudo systemctl stop fwupd.service- Disable the service to prevent it from launching on boot:
sudo systemctl disable fwupd.service- (Optional) Mask the service to ensure no other desktop component tries to start it:
sudo systemctl mask fwupd.serviceThe firmware update daemon is now disabled, preventing unnecessary hardware polling inside your virtual environment.