With $ dpkg-query -W linux-image-$(uname -r) linux-image-2.6.32-5-xen-amd64 2.6.32-27 I see $ find /dev|grep evt /dev/.udev/db/misc:xen/evtchn /dev/xen/evtchn Does everything work if you create evtchn manually with mknod /dev/xen/evtchn c 10 57?