[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.

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🧩 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.

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⚙️ 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.

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✅ 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.

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✅ 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.

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💡 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.

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🙌 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.

[mdsumner]

appreicate the exp here, I just get this message still

https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/releases/download/1.103.0./vscodium-reh-linux-x64-1.103.0..tar.gz

obviously that tar ball with an extra period is going to 404

[mdsumner]

I'm not in control of it though (afaics). Maybe I've got some cruft from earlier attempts.

But, can we install server-side and connect without the client positron triggering an install?

[mdsumner]

got it! sorry, I really don't know how that setting got mangled, I found it in Settings and set to

https://cdn.posit.co/positron/releases/reh/${arch-long}/positron-reh-${os}-${arch}-${version}.tar.gz

and, cleaned up the cruft server-side and it worked. yay!

[mdsumner]

is it possible that a VSCode or Cursor setting from previously connecting to the server interfered with the new Positron attempt? (at any rate, I've very new to all this so I'll just keep exploring)

[juliasilge]

I am not totally sure what Cursor does in this situation, but some brief spelunking does indicate that it's possible they use the VSCodium builds on the remote server. It's possible that your settings got mangled somehow maybe? We do keep your local Positron settings separate from your VS Code ones but maybe something went wrong on the remote.

[mdsumner]

I realise I imported vscode settings, I bet that's it 🙏