Backups from VAMI to SFTP server fail with "Err: curl: (79) Could not open directory for reading: Bad message from SFTP server"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• When trying to take backups of the vCenter in the VAMI to a 3rd party SFTP server we see the backup fail in the VAMI UI
• /var/log/vmware/applmgmt/backup.log 
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS [MainProcess:PID-xxxx] [FtpStorageIOLib::_process_curl_output:FtpStorageIOLib.py:133] ERROR: sftp cmd failed. RC: 79, Err: curl: (79) Could not open directory for reading: Bad message from SFTP server

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.x

Cause

As part of the backup process, when the vCenter executes a curl command to list the available backup directory, a successful response is returned if the target directory exists.
In cases where the directory does not exist, the expected behavior is for curl to return error code 78 (remote file not found) or 19 (resolved FTP error).

However, in some environments that utilize a specific variant of an SFTP server, curl returns the error code 79 instead. This deviation from standard behavior appears to be environment-specific.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in vCenter Server 8.0 and later releases.

Additional Information

If the issue persists, please contact Broadcom Support and reference this KB article for assistance.