Backspace, Tab, Del and arrow keys not working in terminal (using ssh)

Question

When I ssh into another Ubuntu machine with my account (with sudo permissions), my backspace key generates some awkward symbols on pressing. Also Tab, Del and Arrow keys don't work.

On the other hand, I also have another account on the same machine & when I ssh through this account, its terminal works perfectly fine. I couldn't figure out why is this happening.

Solution 1

EDIT: Reference: Mateng's answer

Mateng is close in that I think you're probably running Bourne Shell. But you shouldn't be editing your /etc/passwd file directly. Try using the chsh command instead:

chsh -s /bin/bash

The -s flag will make the new shell (Bash in this case) your login shell, going forward.

Solution 2

when you first ssh in, try these two commands

stty sane
export TERM=linux

I have to do this on some machines that I go into to fix exactly this problem

Solution 3

The following changes solved the problem for me. First, I checked which shell was running:

$ echo $0

which returned:

/bin/sh

As I read in this post in Ubuntuforums, changing the shell to /bin/bash brings the solution. So I edited my user settings in /etc/passwd to:

johndoe:x:1001:104:John Doe:/home/johndoe:/bin/bash

I logged out, then logged in again. Strangely, I had to switch the shell manually (maybe some cache was active) by entering this:

/bin/bash

Voila!
[The problem arose due to a distribution update.]

Solution 4

One of the easiest ways to fix this problem is to type /bin/bash at the command line interface prompt:

$ /bin/bash

The afore mentioned command will execute the Bourne Again Shell on top of the existing shell as a subprocess. This presents the disadvantage of utilising more resources, but nothing has to be edited and no special permissions are required. For example, in recent Kubuntu versions it will start a /bin/bash session atop the default /bin/dash command line shell interface.

To persist the changes, however, one possibility is to edit the /etc/passwd file and add/edit/replace the default shell to /bin/bash after the last ':' character in the line corresponding to the user. In order to edit this file, though, administrator privileges would be required.

Solution 5

I tried all the above plus notes from (this link) with no success. You may want to check vim is installed.

I usually use vi not vim. So I installed vim.

$ sudo apt-get install vim

After that, the keyboard strokes started working properly when I executed vi. Looking at the output of the following, it looks like vi was made an alias to vim after the install:

$ ls -al /etc/alternatives | grep vi 
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    18 Jan 13 09:38 vi -> /usr/bin/vim.basic

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Comments

[Admin]

I have the same problem - my host is Win7-64 and my remote guest systems are both Ubuntu Server 10.04. On one server, the keys work, on another, not.

[Admin]

Can you try to ssh via a different program, or create a new profile for the target system?

[Admin]

I faced the problem with cygwin (in win 7) too

[Admin]

What is returned by typing echo "$TERM", when this occurs?

[Admin]

echo "$TERM" > xterm

[Admin]

I logged in with (1) Kitty, (2) Putty, (3) a new Kitty profile and (4) from an Ubuntu 12.04 Gnome Terminal. In all cases, the problem persists.

[Admin]

Is it possible that resetting xterm configuration helps?

[Admin]

Please better define the problem. What Ubuntu version (local machine and/or remote host) and Gnome Terminal version are causing this issue? Any other variations should be their own question, or asked elsewhere.

[Mateng]

I tried that, but the problem persists

[Drake Clarris]

did you try term as VT100 instead of linux? what about stty erase <backspace> (<backspace> being where you actually hit the key)

[Mateng]

With (Arrow Up):$ stty erase '^[[A' stty: invalid integer argument '\033[A'. With [Backspace]: $ stty erase '^?' it works. With [Tab]: $ stty erase ' ' no error, but then [Backspace] is back to odd behaviour.

[Mateng]

I tried export TERM=VT100, but no avail.

[gopi1410]

yep, same problem with Cygwin too. both do not work..

[Drake Clarris]

Cygwin is mostly what I use it on as my work PC is Windows. stty erase only sets backspace - you said that works, so use that. Looks like you can try stty tab0 - the 0 can be any number between 0 and 3, but I've never used that command, so maybe play with it, but from what I read 0 should be what you need

[Mateng]

stty tab0 does not help. I guess, some kind of general reconfiguration of xterm is necessary. Or the keymap is simply wrong?

[Mateng]

Seems legit. If gopi1410 agrees, the 50 reps are yours.

[gopi1410]

@Mateng: agreed, & a link to your answer added to make it complete

[KrisWebDev]

Run as root: sudo chsh -s /bin/bash

[goncalotomas]

@Worked for me more than 3 years later. Thank you so much! You're awesome!

[Whome]

Worked great for ssh'ing into a raspberry pi!

[Xen2050]

What does your block of code do? create a term config somehow? Would be nice to have some explanation, running mystery code isn't the best idea, even their man pages aren't super clear on the default effect of infocmp, or how this is useful

[user1448926]

@Xen2050: I've added an explanation for each command. infocmp without any option is equivalent to infocmp -I $TERM. This is described in the man page but in two parts: "If no options are specified and zero or one termnames are specified, the -I option will be assumed. [...] The -I, -L, and -C options will produce a source listing for each terminal named. -I use the terminfo names If no termnames are given, the environment variable TERM will be used for the terminal name."

[Kirill Lykov]

worked for google cloud