Trying to install an XP Pro virtual machine as a guest in VMware Workstation 7.1.2, fails with the error: "Could not open /dev/vmmon. No such file or directory. Please make sure that the kernel module 'vmmon' is loaded".

Host OS is Debian-Lenny. Was able to specify the new virtual machine configuration, but VMware failed to create the new image (because of the error specified in previous paragraph).

I am new to Debian, Linux administration, and VMWare. Have a new machine with 6 cores, 8GB RAM.

Is the problem that Debian is not loading/executing a needed process? Should I be directing this problem to either Debian or VMware? I searched the VMware documentation, and it mentioned something about chkconfig (Redhat), or the rcconf/ksysv utilities to change SUSE configuration levels. I am unfamiliar with the syntax, don't know why this is necessary.

Any guidance on this problem is appreciated. Thanks.

If after starting the VMware services 'lsmod vmmon' returns naught run 'vmware-config.pl' or build the LKM from source (/usr/lib/vmware.*/modules/source/vmmon.tar).

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Thanks for your response to my problem. On a guess, I restarted my host OS, then powered-up my XP virtual machine; the building then commenced in a normal way.

I'm uncertain how to perform the rebuild that was suggested, but expect I will learn this in time. I now know what the lsmod and LKM terms mean. Generally, how does one perform a build?

Again, Thank you for responding.

Once the "vmmon.o" VMware Linux kernel module is loaded it'll provide the /dev/vmmon device. So restarting the host should only be done if really necessary, meaning restarting the vmware service itself does not solve the problem.


If 'modprobe vmmon' or 'insmod /path/to/vmmon.o' does not work and no errors are logged then you might need to rebuild the module(s). This is usually facilitated by running 'vmware-config.pl' (for instance after a kernel upgrade) or you can build the module manually: find the "vmmon.tar" tarball, extract it and run 'make', then copy vmmon.o to your /lib/modules/`uname -r`/ (misc,extra,whatever) directory, link vmmon.o to vmmon.ko and finally 'depmod -ae'.