Unable to sync between Windows 10 and Linux using cygwin

[nworbal]

I am currently working using Windows 10 and remoting into a Linux machine. Visual Studio Code is launched from Windows.

I either get the following error code when doing a Sync-Rsync: Compare Remote to Local:

Wed Apr 13 2022 09:29:07 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) comparing
> rsync -nrxaP --exclude=bin nworbal@myLinuxBox:/disk0/scratch/syncCode/ /cygdrive/c/User/nworbal/syncCode/
Host key verification failed.
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [Receiver]
rsync error: unexplained error (code 255) at io.c(226) [Receiver=3.1.2]

WSL doesn't work well in my situation due to weird VPN constraints - so cygwin it is.

Here are my current settings:

  "sync-rsync.executable": "rsync",
  "sync-rsync.remote": "nworbal@myLinuxBox:/disk0/scratch/syncCode/",
  "sync-rsync.local": "/cygdrive/c/User/nworbal/syncCode/",
  "sync-rsync.cygpath": "C:\\cygwin64\\bin\\cygpath.exe",
  "sync-rsync.flags": "rxaP",
  "sync-rsync.showProgress": false,

  "sync-rsync.notification": true,
  "sync-rsync.onSaveIndividual": true,
  "sync-rsync.autoShowOutput": true,
  "sync-rsync.exclude": [
    "bin"
  ]

If I open a cygwin terminal and run:

rsync -rxaP --exclude 'bin' nworbal@myLinuxBox:/disk0/scratch/syncCode/ /cygdrive/c/User/nworbal/syncCode/

It works fine.

Could you point out what I am doing wrong in my settings?