I am using a CentOS 7.9 VMware VM, kernel version

kernel-3.10.0-1160.92.1.el7.x86_64

I have created a KNI interface but when I run 

ip link set <kni> up

I get

RTNETLINK answers: Operation not supported

This same software and command works on a CentOS 7.7 bare iron machine.

What is the problem, and how do I investigate this?