[Solved] Parallels Desktop: Interface vmnet1 is not present. This should be created at boot time.

calendar Jul 10, 2012  · Updated: November 1, 2025 · 1 min read  ·
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I recently modified my Parallels DHCP settings because I'm really particular about the internal subnets I work with in the lab (192.168 is the ugliest subnet ever). Once I modified the file at /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/networking (OS X) my Parallels Desktop erred out and said

Interface vmnet1 is not present. This should be created at boot time.

Someone on this thread suggested a reinstall but that only worked as a temporary fix. Turns out, when you modify the networking file, you also need to restart your vmnet-cli service. You can do this with the following commands:

1/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --stop
2/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --config
3/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --start
4/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --status

I ended up just throwing the stop and start commands into a script and running it each time I modified my settings.

Note (2025): The error message and commands above refer to VMware Fusion's vmnet interfaces on macOS. Despite the title mentioning Parallels Desktop, the remediation here restarts VMware Fusion's vmnet service.