NCurses and Yast show line distortion with the Putty SSH client

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

When using putty and other ssh emulators line drawing is replaced with characters.  Functionality of nurses is not effected it, but may be difficult to read and navigate.

example of Behavior:

  lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqk
  x                               YaST2 Control Center                               x
  mqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqj

  lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqk lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqk
  xSoftware               x xOnline Update                                           x
  xHardware               x xSoftware Management                                     x
  xSystem                 x xAdd-On Products                                         x
  xNetwork Devices        x xMedia Check                                             x
  xNetwork Services       x xOnline Update Configuration                             x
  xSecurity and Users     x xPatch CD Update                                         x
  xSupport                x xSoftware Repositories                                   x
  xMiscellaneous          x x                                                        x
  x                       x x                                                        x
  x                       x x                                                        x
  x                       x x                                                        x
  x                       x x                                                        x
  x                       x x                                                        x
  x                       x x                                                        x
  x                       x x                                                        x

To resolve this issue for a single user.

1.) Add "export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1"  to the SSH user's ~/.bashrc without quotes, optionally using the following command for simplicity.

echo 'export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1' >> ~/.bashrc

2.) Logout and log back in to test.



To resolve this for all users on a specific SSH server, create /etc/bash.bashrc.local, and add the variable to this file

1.)

# echo 'export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1' >> /etc/bash.bashrc.local

2.) Log out and log back in, or call 'bash' anew, to test.



To resolve this from the Putty client side for all systems, set the connection to use the 'linux' terminal instead of the default 'xterm' terminal.  In the settings go to Connection -> Data and look for 'Terminal-type string' for the location to make this change.  If possible, save the connection, or the defaults, so this is saved perpetually.

Many SSH emulators will use UTF-8 mode. This in turn  will result in the session not use the correct character set.  Ncurses attempts to use the "graphical" character set for drawing lines. Which results in alpha and numeric characters when executing the ncurses environment.