Actually, there is something odd going on. This example is from 13.1 - systemd-udev complains about this: systemd-udevd[284]: invalid key/value pair in file /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/90-hwrng.rules on line 1,starting at character 107 ('a') I added a newline and it's fine. However, nothing complains about this rule: /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules: SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:14:85:a6:a8:3d", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0" It has no trailing newline. Also, in the 90-hwrng.rules file, character 107 is not an 'a'.