Mac 10.14.6 iTerm2 Build 3.4.8 Google Cloud SDK 351.0.0 beta 2021.07.30 bq 2.0.70 core 2021.07.30 gsutil 4.66
Logging in to my virtual gcloud server without errors with:
gcloud compute ssh myserver
However, the backspace key in the terminal registers as a space key.
Tried exactly the same with the stock Mac terminal, the same behaviour.
What gives?
The backspace key will often seem to register as a space key if the environment variable TERM is not set to a value that is defined in your terminfo configuration.
You can check the value of TERM by running:
echo $TERM
terminfo can be configured in several places, but on Google Compute Engine it is likely using the values from /lib/terminfo. (Other possibilities include $HOME/.terminfo and /usr/share/terminfo.) You can check if your current setting for TERM corresponds to a file in this directory by running:
find /lib/terminfo -name $TERM
If the value is present, you will see something like /lib/terminfo/s/screen-256color. If it is not present, you will not see any output.
You can fix the problem by ensuring that your TERM environment variable is set to one of the files defined in terminfo.