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When I run lsmod or sudo lsmod, I get an error that says:

libkmod: ERROR ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:1655 kmod_module_new_from_loaded: could not open /proc/modules: No such file or directory
Error: could not get list of modules: No such file or directory

I searched on a lot of forums but am unable to find a solution for this. I'm running Debian on Windows Subsystem for Linux.

I was recently also trying to edit the sysctl.conf file for the purpose of disabling ipv6. I had added the following lines:

net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

And when I tried sudo sysctl -p, it returned this error:

sysctl: cannot stat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/disable_ipv6: No such file or directory
sysctl: cannot stat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/default/disable_ipv6: No such file or directory
sysctl: cannot stat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/lo/disable_ipv6: No such file or directory

I'm not sure if the above 2 errors are connected. I was trying to run Linux shell on Windows. Any solution to the problem?

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    Debian on WSL is not exactly the same thing...I am not much surprised about the IPv6 tidbit. Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 13:35

3 Answers 3

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In both cases, you’re trying to interact with the kernel. Any Linux environment running on WSL isn’t running a Linux kernel, it’s running on the Windows kernel; so anything tied to the Linux kernel (including modules and system controls) won’t work.

In the IPv6 case, you need to configure the network using Windows’ tools.

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  • Is there any work around to this? And could there be instances where I would need to probably interact with the kernel in order to perform some important task? Is there a workaround in that case? Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 14:17
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    The workaround is to run a full Linux environment, e.g. in a VM. There are some things which you can only do with a Linux kernel, just as there are others you can only do with Windows. You need to use the appropriate tool for your requirements; WSL gives you a Linux user-space on Windows, but it isn’t Linux. Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 14:30
  • WSL gives you a Linux user-space on Windows, but it isn’t Linux.@StephenKitt Good👍 Commented Sep 24, 2021 at 6:13
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Not strictly related to WSL, but you can see this error if your kernel was compiled without loadable module support.

Without module support, /proc/modules doesn't exist, which is what lsmod relies on for most of its information.

If you are compiling your own kernel, the option to look for is CONFIG_MODULES.

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I got this error because I was trying to do nfs mounts in WSL. You can connect to your drives using windows, then mount them in WSL.

sudo mount -t drvfs G: /mnt/g

For the full answer where I got this from: https://superuser.com/questions/1128634/how-to-access-mounted-network-drive-on-windows-linux-subsystem/1261563#1261563

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