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Terminfo & TERM over SSH

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Modern terminal emulators — Ghostty, Kitty, Alacritty — advertise their own terminal type (TERM=xterm-ghostty, xterm-kitty, and so on). A remote server can only drive a terminal it has a terminfo entry for, so the moment you land on a box that has never heard of xterm-ghostty, full-screen programs bail out with Error opening terminal: xterm-ghostty. The classic tell is that nano works but sudo nano doesn't — because sudo throws away the environment that made it work.

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The symptom

$ sudo nano /etc/hosts
Error opening terminal: xterm-ghostty.
You run Result Why
nano file works your login shell has TERM and a terminfo it can find
sudo nano file fails sudo resets the environment; root can't find xterm-ghostty
vim, top, less, tmux may fail the same way any curses / full-screen program needs terminfo

Why it happens

Two things line up:

  1. TERM names a terminal the server doesn't know. Ghostty sets TERM=xterm-ghostty. The server looks that name up in its terminfo database to learn how to move the cursor, clear the screen, and do colour. No entry means Error opening terminal.
  2. sudo starts a clean environment. Your login shell probably had a terminfo it could find — Ghostty's SSH integration drops one into ~/.terminfo, and TERMINFO / TERMINFO_DIRS may point at it. sudo strips those variables and runs as root, which only searches the system database, where xterm-ghostty usually isn't.
Whose lookup Searches Has xterm-ghostty?
your user ~/.terminfo, then $TERMINFO / $TERMINFO_DIRS, then the system dirs often yes (injected on connect)
root via sudo system dirs only — /usr/share/terminfo, /lib/terminfo, /etc/terminfo usually no

Quick fix — one-off

Override TERM for that single command with a type every server understands:

sudo TERM=xterm-256color nano /etc/hosts

Nothing to install, nothing to configure. You only lose Ghostty-specific niceties (a few colours or key sequences) for that one command.

Permanent fix A — copy the terminfo to the server

Keep the real xterm-ghostty features by putting its terminfo where the server — and root — can find it. The cleanest approach exports your local entry and compiles it on the remote in one line, with no files to move by hand:

# run on your LOCAL machine
infocmp -x xterm-ghostty | ssh user@server -- tic -x -

Already SSH'd in, with the entry sitting in your ~/.terminfo? Copy it into a system location instead:

# into root's own database
sudo mkdir -p /root/.terminfo/x
sudo cp -a ~/.terminfo/x/xterm-ghostty /root/.terminfo/x/

# …or system-wide, for every user on the box
sudo cp -a ~/.terminfo/x/xterm-ghostty /usr/share/terminfo/x/

Distros disagree on the system path — it may be /lib/terminfo/x/ or /etc/terminfo/x/ instead. Run infocmp -D to print the directories this server actually searches.

Permanent fix B — let sudo keep your TERMINFO

If the entry is already reachable from your user (for example in ~/.terminfo), tell sudo to carry TERMINFO across instead of stripping it:

sudo TERM=xterm-256color visudo          # the override just lets visudo open

Add one line — ideally as a drop-in like /etc/sudoers.d/terminfo, so a package upgrade can't clobber it:

Defaults    env_keep += "TERMINFO TERMINFO_DIRS"

Now sudo nano inherits your terminfo path and finds xterm-ghostty.

Permanent fix C — report xterm-256color

Tired of doing this on every new box? Tell the emulator to identify as the universal type. You give up a few bleeding-edge features in exchange for compatibility everywhere.

Terminal Config file Line to add
Ghostty ~/.config/ghostty/config term = xterm-256color
Kitty ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf term xterm-256color
Alacritty ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml [env] → TERM = "xterm-256color"

Restart the terminal afterwards. Kitty and Ghostty also ship SSH integration — kitten ssh user@host, or Ghostty's SSH feature — that copies the terminfo to the remote for you, so you keep the native TERM without the errors.

Diagnose it

echo "$TERM"                          # what your terminal claims to be
infocmp "$TERM" >/dev/null && echo ok || echo "no terminfo for $TERM"
infocmp -D                            # the terminfo directories searched, in order
toe | grep -i ghostty                 # is any ghostty entry installed?
sudo sh -c 'echo "$TERM"; infocmp -D' # what root sees (TERM is often reset first)
Command Tells you
echo $TERM the terminal type being advertised
infocmp $TERM dumps the entry — errors if it's missing
infocmp -D the exact terminfo search path on this host
tic -x file compile / install a terminfo source (-x keeps extended caps)
toe list every terminfo the system knows about

Which fix should I use?

Situation Best fix
Just need to edit one file, right now Quick fix: sudo TERM=xterm-256color …
Your own server, want the full terminal Fix A: copy the terminfo (system-wide or to /root)
Entry already in your ~/.terminfo Fix B: env_keep += "TERMINFO"
You hop across many servers Fix C: report xterm-256color, or use kitten ssh