[Experience Sharing] Remote SSH install failed — solution via manual server download (version-specific)

[louhao1129]

Hi everyone, just wanted to share an experience I had when using Positron’s Remote SSH feature. I believe it may help others who run into similar issues, especially those behind slow or restricted network environments.

---

🧩 Problem

When I first connected to a remote Linux server using Positron, it seemed to hang for quite a while. Thinking something was wrong, I interrupted the connection before it completed.

After that, every attempt to reconnect failed with errors like:

gzip: stdin: invalid compressed data--format violated
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
......
......
Error resolving authority
Error: Couldn't install Positron server on remote server, install script returned non-zero exit status

This was caused by a partially downloaded or corrupted server installation (~/.positron-server/) due to my premature cancellation.

---

⚙️ Diagnosis

• On first SSH connection, Positron downloads a version-specific server tarball (~100MB) from:

  https://cdn.posit.co/positron/dailies/reh/<arch>/positron-reh-<os>-<arch>-<version>.tar.gz
  

• This happens on the remote server, not locally.

• In my case, the remote server’s download speed was only ~1MB/s, so it took 2–3 minutes.

• Cancelling during this process led to broken gzip/tar files.

---

✅ Solution Option 1: Let Positron download automatically (be patient!)

1. Delete the corrupted installation:

   rm -rf ~/.positron-server/

2. Reconnect using Positron, and wait patiently (up to several minutes) until installation completes.

---

✅ Solution Option 2: Manually download the server tarball (recommended for slow or restricted networks)

1. On the remote server, create the version-specific directory:

   mkdir -p ~/.positron-server/bin/<DISTRO_COMMIT>
   cd ~/.positron-server/bin/<DISTRO_COMMIT>

2. Download the appropriate server tarball (example for version 2025.08.0-130):

   wget https://cdn.posit.co/positron/dailies/reh/x86_64/positron-reh-linux-x64-2025.08.0-130.tar.gz

3. Extract it with the correct strip option:

   tar -xzf positron-reh-linux-x64-2025.08.0-130.tar.gz --strip-components=1

⚠️ Important: The DISTRO_COMMIT (e.g., 76ddce53e85437b013671fe7d91a3a1c54f48341) is version-specific and must match what your Positron IDE expects. You can find it in the connection logs when installation fails or succeeds.

---

💡 Tips

• You can obtain the expected DISTRO_COMMIT and DISTRO_VERSION from the Positron log output or install script.
• If you're behind a firewall, you can also download the tarball locally and scp it to the remote server.

---

🙌 Thanks

Thanks to the Positron team for building a great R developer tool based on VS Code. Hope this helps someone save time and frustration during first-time setup!

[austin3dickey]

Hey @louhao1129, thanks so much for this writeup! It's great to know that the problem for you was due to interrupting the connection. A few other people have run into this same problem recently: #8807

I'll create an issue for making this experience better.

Edit: #8848

[MrShadow0624]

Hi all,

I'm encountering a similar issue with Positron's Remote SSH, and I'd like to ask a question based on the excellent troubleshooting guide provided by @louhao1129.

My situation is a bit different: I'm trying to connect from a macOS client to a Windows machine. My Windows machine is properly configured with OpenSSH Server, and I've successfully set up a reverse proxy with frp for a public IP address. I can connect to the Windows server without any issues using both VS Code and the standard terminal SSH command.

However, when I try to connect with Positron, the connection fails with the following error:

[Error - 05:46:53.903] Error resolving authority
Error: Failed parsing install script output

I checked the server's home directory (C:\Users\123\.positron-server) and found that the folder is completely empty. This suggests that the server component was not downloaded at all, which is different from the partially-downloaded issue mentioned in the original post.

Given that my Positron log shows the DISTRO_COMMIT as 76ddce53e85437b013671fe7d91a3a1c54f48341 and the DISTRO_VERSION as 2025.08.0-130, I'd like to try the manual download solution (Option 2).

My question is: What is the correct download URL for the Positron server for a Windows machine?

The provided URL template is:
https://cdn.posit.co/positron/dailies/reh/<arch>/positron-reh-<os>-<arch>-<version>.tar.gz

I need to figure out the correct <os> and <arch> values for my case. My log indicates the client is darwin and the server is windows. My Windows machine has an x64 architecture.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[MrShadow0624]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. It's a bit disappointing to hear that Positron doesn't support Windows as a remote host, but I really appreciate you taking the time to confirm this and check the download links.

[austin3dickey]

Thanks for the feature request @MrShadow0624, and thanks for the help @louhao1129!

I've created #9097 to track this request. If you'd like to take a look, add a 👍 for prioritization, and/or any additional comments you have, that would be great.

[kv9898]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. It's a bit disappointing to hear that Positron doesn't support Windows as a remote host, but I really appreciate you taking the time to confirm this and check the download links.

Could you set up a server inside WSL as a workaround?

[austin3dickey]

I believe that won't work either right now; see #4366

[kv9898]

I believe that won't work either right now; see #4366

I'm not very familiar with SSH, but in #4366 the note says: This specifically refers to running Positron Desktop natively on Windows, and connecting to a headless server component inside WSL. It doesn't mean running a Positron Server in WSL and connecting via a web browser, or running Positron Desktop itself wholly in WSL.

So I would I assume the issue is talking about the need for a WSL extension (which I have implemented) rather than a WSL server - which is just identical to the Linux one.

[kv9898]

Just want to say this applies to WSL connection problems also.