search for: allowed_packet_length

...SH in my case) tries to interpret them, and this is why Putty hangs. Those 0x00 padded bytes are at the layer2 Ethernet frame level, and should not be considered in the user data of the higher level protocols. About the padding bytes I have found some info here: https://wiki.wireshark.org/Ethernet#Allowed_Packet_Lengths The flow in my environment is like this: [windows host]<---->[server1 host br0(eno1,vnet0)]<---->[eth0 centos1 VM] All above hosts are in the same subnet, so no routers in between. Server1 has the br0 linux bridge in forwarding mode that connects eno1 physical interface with the vne...

You say you can ping but not ssh. If you install tcpdump on the VM, can you see the ping packets arriving and leaving? If not, I suspect an address collision - especially if ping continues to work with the VM shut down. If you can't ping, check the other end of your bridge. I'm more familiar with open vSwitch, but I'm somewhat concerned that your bridge definition doesn't include a