remote explorer - containers: Shell server terminated (code:255, signal: null)

[soribido]

• VSCode Version: 1.70.0
• Local OS Version: Window 10
• Remote OS Version: Ubuntu 20.04.2
• Remote Extension/Connection Type: SSH/Containers/
• Logs:
  Shell server terminated (code: 255, signal: null) 'wmic'��(��) ���� �Ǵ� �ܺ� ����, ������ �� �ִ� ���α׷�, �Ǵ� ��ġ ������ �ƴմϴ�. node:child_process:923 throw err; ^ Error: Command failed: wmic process where (commandline like "%ssh-askpass.bat%") get processid,parentprocessid /format:csv 'wmic'��(��) ���� �Ǵ� �ܺ� ����, ������ �� �ִ� ���α׷�, �Ǵ� ��ġ ������ �ƴմϴ�. at checkExecSyncError (node:child_process:846:11) at Object.execSync (node:child_process:920:15) at Object. (node:electron/js2c/asar_bundle:5:12704) at Object. (c:\Users\phase.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.243.0\dist\common\sshAskpass.js:5:808) at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1163:14) at Object.Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1216:10) at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1035:32) at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:876:12) at Function.c._load (node...

Steps to Reproduce:

I want to work in a docker container on a remote server using vscode.
I can access to remote server using ssh, but I can't access docker container on a remote server.
I can access docker container shell using docker extension and right mouse click,
but it doesn't work when choosing "Attach Visual Studio Code". (same error message)

1. Remote-SSH: Connect to Host
2. Enter the password
3. open Remote Explorer extension: SSH targets -> Containers
4. Error message

[chrmarti]

This could be an issue with the SSH password prompt. Could you try using a public key for authentication and add the private key to your localhost's ssh-agent to avoid the prompt and see if that works?

[soribido]

Now I can access to remote docker container. Thank you!

[elsiehupp]

I found my way to this Issue because I was having the same problem on a (bare metal, i.e. not WSL2) Ubuntu remote (from a macOS client).

The GitHub instructions for "Adding your SSH key to the ssh-agent" are a top search result for the phrase "ssh-agent save passphrase", but they only cover macOS (and I had already done everything in the article), so I had to dig up unofficial instructions for Linux. This gist "How to use ssh-agent to cache your SSH credentials?" with instructions for Linux was the top search result for "ssh-agent save passphrase linux", and following the instructions on my Ubuntu remote fixed the problem for me.

Basically the error message provided—remote explorer - containers: Shell server terminated (code:255, signal: null)—should be more descriptive, with, e.g., a link to a support article explaining how to add one's SSH keys to one's ssh-agent. One should not have to google a first-party error message, look in a closed bug report, google text from the bug report, look at a quasi-first-party support article, google text from that support article, and then, finally, follow a third-party tutorial just to be able to use the basic functionality of a first-party extension.

Or, I dunno, maybe VS Code could just add support for SSH-key passphrases? This is a long-running problem.

(The weirder thing is that I wasn't having this problem previously, and I'm not sure what changed that broke things, unless the issue is new for this particular VS Code release. I had been using SSH Agent Forwarding to work around the lack of a passphrase interface for Git, so maybe the recent VS Code release broke SSH Agent Forwarding for remote containers, idk?)

I can open a new Issue regarding the error popup itself if that would help. I'm just commenting here because this is a top google result for the error message, and my experience is relevant to any future visitors needing to fix the same problem themselves.