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UPDATE

It turns out that the default graphical terminal of RHEL 8 (GNOME Terminal) sets the TERM environment variable to xterm-256color even though it doesn't implement the whole set of Control Sequences of Xterm...

The Control Sequence that I see when using Vim remotely on the mac is ESC[>4;m, which corresponds to CSI  >  Pm  m from here:

CSI > Ps n
          Disable key modifier options, xterm. These modifiers may be
          enabled via the CSI > Pm m sequence. This control sequence
          corresponds to a resource value of "-1", which cannot be set
          with the other sequence.

          The parameter identifies the resource to be disabled:

            Ps = 0  ⇒  modifyKeyboard.
            Ps = 1  ⇒  modifyCursorKeys.
            Ps = 2  ⇒  modifyFunctionKeys.
            Ps = 4  ⇒  modifyOtherKeys.

          If the parameter is omitted, modifyFunctionKeys is disabled.
          When modifyFunctionKeys is disabled, xterm uses the modifier
          keys to make an extended sequence of function keys rather than
          adding a parameter to each function key to denote the
          modifiers.

The solution is to simply set TERM to the correct value for GNOME Terminal, which is gnome-256color, but, setting TERM in the shell profile (or rc) file isn't a very good idea when you log into your machine from different OSs, so I decided to edit the preferences of GNOME Terminal and add a Run a custom command instead of my shell:

/usr/bin/env TERM=gnome-256color /bin/bash

OLD ANSWER

_{Not an answer but a workaround}

By trying different TERM values I found one that makes Vim work: screen

So a workaround could be to add the following code to the shell profile file:

[ "$TERM" = xterm-256color ] && TERM=screen

While I can make do with it, I would prefer to understand where the problem lies exactly.

UPDATE

It turns out that GNOME Terminal (default graphical terminal of RHEL 8) sets the TERM environment variable to xterm-256color even though it doesn't implement the whole set of Control Sequences of Xterm...

According to this document, the Control Sequence ESC[>4;m corresponds to CSI > Pm m:

CSI > Ps n
          Disable key modifier options, xterm. These modifiers may be
          enabled via the CSI > Pm m sequence. This control sequence
          corresponds to a resource value of "-1", which cannot be set
          with the other sequence.

          The parameter identifies the resource to be disabled:

            Ps = 0  ⇒  modifyKeyboard.
            Ps = 1  ⇒  modifyCursorKeys.
            Ps = 2  ⇒  modifyFunctionKeys.
            Ps = 4  ⇒  modifyOtherKeys.

          If the parameter is omitted, modifyFunctionKeys is disabled.
          When modifyFunctionKeys is disabled, xterm uses the modifier
          keys to make an extended sequence of function keys rather than
          adding a parameter to each function key to denote the
          modifiers.

The solution is simply to set TERM to the correct value for GNOME Terminal, i.e. gnome-256color. But, setting TERM in the shell profile (or rc) file isn't so good of an idea when you connect to your machine remotely from different OSs, so it's safer to edit the preferences of GNOME Terminal and add a Run a custom command instead of my shell:

/usr/bin/env TERM=gnome-256color /bin/bash

OLD ANSWER

_{Not an answer but a workaround}

By trying different TERM values I found one that makes Vim work: screen

So a workaround could be to add the following code to the shell profile file of the remote machine:

[ "$TERM" = xterm-256color ] && TERM=screen

While I can make do with it, I would prefer to understand where the problem lies exactly.

_{Not an answer but a workaround}

By trying different TERM values I found one that makes Vim work: screen

So a workaround could be to add the following code to the shell profile file:

[ "$TERM" = xterm-256color ] && TERM=screen

While I can make do with it, I would prefer to understand where the problem lies exactly.

UPDATE

It turns out that the default graphical terminal of RHEL 8 (GNOME Terminal) sets the TERM environment variable to xterm-256color even though it doesn't implement the whole set of Control Sequences of Xterm...

The Control Sequence that I see when using Vim remotely on the mac is ESC[>4;m, which corresponds to CSI > Pm m from here:

CSI > Ps n
          Disable key modifier options, xterm. These modifiers may be
          enabled via the CSI > Pm m sequence. This control sequence
          corresponds to a resource value of "-1", which cannot be set
          with the other sequence.

          The parameter identifies the resource to be disabled:

            Ps = 0  ⇒  modifyKeyboard.
            Ps = 1  ⇒  modifyCursorKeys.
            Ps = 2  ⇒  modifyFunctionKeys.
            Ps = 4  ⇒  modifyOtherKeys.

          If the parameter is omitted, modifyFunctionKeys is disabled.
          When modifyFunctionKeys is disabled, xterm uses the modifier
          keys to make an extended sequence of function keys rather than
          adding a parameter to each function key to denote the
          modifiers.

The solution is to simply set TERM to the correct value for GNOME Terminal, which is gnome-256color, but, setting TERM in the shell profile (or rc) file isn't a very good idea when you log into your machine from different OSs, so I decided to edit the preferences of GNOME Terminal and add a Run a custom command instead of my shell:

/usr/bin/env TERM=gnome-256color /bin/bash

OLD ANSWER

_{Not an answer but a workaround}

By trying different TERM values I found one that makes Vim work: screen

So a workaround could be to add the following code to the shell profile file:

[ "$TERM" = xterm-256color ] && TERM=screen

While I can make do with it, I would prefer to understand where the problem lies exactly.

_{Not an answer but a workaround}

By trying different TERM values I found one that makes Vim work: screen

So a workaround could be to add the following code in the shell profile file:

[ "$TERM" = xterm-256color ] && TERM=screen

While I can make do with it, I would prefer to understand where the problem lies exactly.

_{Not an answer but a workaround}

By trying different TERM values I found one that makes Vim work: screen

So a workaround could be to add the following code to the shell profile file:

[ "$TERM" = xterm-256color ] && TERM=screen

While I can make do with it, I would prefer to understand where the problem lies exactly.