Ubuntu
vim package

Weird key bindings in vi in an ssh session

Asked by Mitch Claborn

I support a number of systems remotely, and often find myself using vi in an ssh session to edit various files. In some cases, but not all, when I press the up arrow (in insert mode) I get a capital letter A and a new line instead of the cursor moving up. Other arrow keys have similar issues. This only seems to be a problem when in insert mode.

On other systems, the arrow keys work as I want them to, moving the cursor.

I can't figure out what causes the weirdness.

Any ideas?

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Mitch Claborn
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

What are yuo using to connect to the SSH service?

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#2

Command line ssh:
OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1, OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

tried in putty, is it the same?

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#4

Yes, it behaves the same when when I use putty.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#5

I suggest you report a bug with openssh-server

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#6

Out of curiosity, why do you think it is a bug with openssh-server as opposed to the ssh client or vi?

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#7

Just had an epiphany: This only happens when I connect from a 64 bit machine to a 32 bit machine. If both are 64 or both are 32, it works fine.

Given that, I'm going to move this question to openssh-server and maybe open a bug if I don't find an answer there.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#8

Try:

sudo wget -O /usr/bin/ssh32 https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8850924/ssh

May help, that's the ssh binary from my 32bit OS, may work.

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#9

Tried that, did not help.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#10

did you try running:

ssh2 -C -X user@server

To see if it runs ok?

If its no good I suggest you report a bug and report your findings.

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#11

I don't have an ssh2 program, only ssh. Is that a typo?

ssh -C -X did not help.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#12

You will have made it after you ran the command I gave.

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#13

Please also try to install on the remote systems the vim-full package

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#14

Marco - I could not find any such package to install.

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Mitch Claborn (mitch-news) said : 		#15

Marco - the package I needed was "vim". The systems I was having trouble with were desktop systems that only install vim-tiny. Installing vim on the remote system fixed this problem, for both 32 and 64 bit systems.