Upgrading vSphere Replication 6.1.2/6.5.x to 8.1 fails with the error "input stream closed" during SFTP file transfer

Products

• VMware Live Recovery
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

When upgrading vSphere Replication Appliance from version 6.1.2/6.5.x to vSphere Replication 8.1 fails and you see error message:

# Upgrade Services
Stopping hms service ... OK
Stopping vcta service ... OK
Stopping hbr service ... OK
Downloading file [/opt/vmware/hms/conf/hms-configuration.xml] to [/opt/vmware/upgrade/oldvr] ...Failure during upgrade procedure at Upgrade Services phase: java.io.IOException: inputstream is closed
com.jcraft.jsch.JSchException: java.io.IOException: inputstream is closed
        at com.jcraft.jsch.ChannelSftp.start(ChannelSftp.java:315)
        at com.jcraft.jsch.Channel.connect(Channel.java:152)
        at com.jcraft.jsch.Channel.connect(Channel.java:145)
        at com.vmware.hms.apps.util.upgrade.SshUtil.getSftpChannel(SshUtil.java:66)

Environment

VMware vSphere Replication 6.5.x
VMware vSphere Replication 8.x
VMware vSphere Replication 6.1.x

Cause

This issue may occur if vSphere Replication was originally deployed on version 5.1 or 5.5. An SFTP parameter that persists through upgrades to 6.1.2 or 6.5.x is preventing the transfer of the configuration files during the upgrade process for vSphere Replication 8.1.

Note: A vSphere Replication Appliance that was newly deployed on build 6.1.2 or greater should not face this issue during upgrade to 8.1
 

Resolution

To resolve this issue, 

1. Open the console or SSH to the source vSphere Replication Appliance
2. Edit the sshd_config file located under /etc/ssh/sshd_config
3. Change the following line:

From
Subsystem sftp /usr/lib64/ssh/sftp-server

to 

Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/ssh/sftp-server

4. Save the changes
5. Restart the ssh service using command:

service sshd restart

4. Reattempt the upgrade process for vSphere Replication 8.1 from the beginning.   Power off newly deployed OVF and deploy a fresh 8.x OVF from the webclient.