Scp “lost connection” but ssh works fine

scpssh

A server I can ssh into fine has begun refusing to scp.

$ scp ~/tmp/foo user@some.example.com:~/tmp/
lost connection

With scp -v -v I can see the connection succeeds and the transfer appears to succeed, but no file appears on the other side.

OpenSSH_5.9p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8r 8 Feb 2011
debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/schwern/.ssh/config
debug1: /Users/schwern/.ssh/config line 1: Applying options for *
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh_config line 20: Applying options for *
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to testcurrent01.dev.liquidweb.com [10.30.152.254] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /Users/schwern/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/schwern/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/schwern/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/schwern/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_4.3
debug1: match: OpenSSH_4.3 pat OpenSSH_4*
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.9
debug2: fd 3 setting O_NONBLOCK
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
...lots of authentication details...
debug1: Enabling compression at level 6.
debug1: Authentication succeeded (publickey).
Authenticated to user@some.example.com ([1.2.3.4]:22).
debug2: fd 5 setting O_NONBLOCK
debug2: fd 6 setting O_NONBLOCK
debug1: channel 0: new [client-session]
debug2: channel 0: send open
debug1: Entering interactive session.
debug2: callback start
debug2: client_session2_setup: id 0
debug2: fd 3 setting TCP_NODELAY
debug1: Sending environment.
debug1: Sending env LANG = en_US.UTF-8
debug2: channel 0: request env confirm 0
debug1: Sending command: scp -v -t -- ~/tmp/
debug2: channel 0: request exec confirm 1
debug2: callback done
debug2: channel 0: open confirm rwindow 0 rmax 32768
debug2: channel 0: rcvd adjust 2097152
debug2: channel_input_status_confirm: type 99 id 0
debug2: exec request accepted on channel 0
debug2: channel 0: rcvd eof
debug2: channel 0: output open -> drain
debug2: channel 0: obuf empty
debug2: channel 0: close_write
debug2: channel 0: output drain -> closed
debug1: client_input_channel_req: channel 0 rtype exit-status reply 0
debug2: channel 0: rcvd close
debug2: channel 0: close_read
debug2: channel 0: input open -> closed
debug2: channel 0: almost dead
debug2: channel 0: gc: notify user
debug2: channel 0: gc: user detached
debug2: channel 0: send close
debug2: channel 0: is dead
debug2: channel 0: garbage collecting
debug1: channel 0: free: client-session, nchannels 1
debug1: fd 0 clearing O_NONBLOCK
debug1: fd 1 clearing O_NONBLOCK
Transferred: sent 4576, received 2520 bytes, in 0.0 seconds
Bytes per second: sent 167737.0, received 92372.6
debug1: Exit status 0
debug1: compress outgoing: raw data 135, compressed 121, factor 0.90
debug1: compress incoming: raw data 66, compressed 52, factor 0.79
lost connection

It is a CentOS 5.9 machine.

Things I've checked…

  • I have permission to write to that directory.
  • The user has a sensible shell (/bin/bash).
  • I tried moving my ~/.ssh/config out of the way.
  • scp'ing to that machine from others with entirely different operating systems also fail.
  • The disk is not full.
  • Restarting sshd.

/var/log/secure contains…

Apr  4 14:23:22 some sshd[12576]: Postponed publickey for user from 1.2.3.4 port 33581 ssh2
Apr  4 14:23:22 some sshd[12575]: Accepted publickey for user from 1.2.3.4 port 33581 ssh2
Apr  4 14:23:22 some sshd[12575]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user user by (uid=0)
Apr  4 14:23:22 some sshd[12575]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for user user

What might I check next?

Best Answer

Had the same issue.

If you did a minimal install of Centos, it only install the openssh and openssh-server packages but not the openssh-clients. sudo yum install openssh-clients will fix your issue.

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