Connecting to vCenter Server Virtual Appliance using WinSCP fails with the error: Received too large (1433299822 B) SFTP packet. Max supported packet size is 1024000 B

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0
• VMware vCenter Server 6.0

Issue/Introduction

• Connecting to vCenter Server using WinSCP fails with the error:
  Received too large (1433299822 B) SFTP packet. Max supported packet size is 1024000 B
  
  
• Attempting to upload a file to the vCenter Server using the SCP protocol via WinSCP, PSCP or other SCP clients fail with the error:
  Host is not communicating for more than 15 seconds. If the problem repeats, try turning off 'Optimize connection buffer size'
  
  
• Encountering an error while attempting to SCP into vCenter via the command line.
  scp: Received message too long 1433299822
scp: ensure the remote shell produces no output for non-interactive sessions.

Environment

vCenter Server Appliance (All versions)

Cause

• When using WinSCP, part of the operation occurs on the target system. The default Appliance Shell cannot be the remote partner of WinSCP.

• By default, VCSA is set to Appliance Shell, but SCP requires Bash shell.

Resolution

There are 2 ways to resolve this issue.

Option 1:

• Adjust the WinSCP advanced settings as follows:

  1. Open Advanced settings in WinSCP.

  2. Select SFTP.

  3. In SFTP server, replace the default value with: shell /usr/libexec/sftp-server

Note: This method is safer than changing the vCenter bash shell, as it avoids risks associated with modifying Photon OS settings.

 

Option 2:

• Enter the vCenter appliance in Bash shell from CLI using below command:
  chsh -s  /bin/bash root

Additional Information

How to upload or download files to or from vCenter and ESXi hosts

Toggling the vCenter Server Appliance default shell