Mount a remote file system through ssh Using sshfs

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Sep 032007
 

    If you want to access a remote file system through ssh you need to install sshfs.sshfs is a filesystem client based on the SSH File Transfer Protocol. Since most SSH servers already support this protocol it is very easy to set up: i.e. on the server side there's nothing to do. On the client side mounting the file system is as easy as logging into the server with ssh.

    sshfs Features

    • Based on FUSE (the best userspace filesystem framework for linux)
    • Multithreading: more than one request can be on it's way to the server
    • Allowing large reads (max 64k)
    • Caching directory contents
    • sshfs runs entirely in user space. A user using sshfs does not need to deal with the root account of the remote machine. In the case of NFS, Samba etc., the admin of the remote machine has to grant access to those who will be using the services.

    Install SSHFS in Debian

    #apt-get install fuse-utils sshfs

    Next, let’s make sure the following condition is met. In the local system, type (as root)

    # modprobe fuse

    This will load the FUSE kernel module. Besides SSHFS, the FUSE module allows to do lots of other nifty tricks with file systems, such as the BitTorrent file system, the Bluetooth file system, the User-level versioning file system, the CryptoFS, the Compressed read-only file system and many others.

    Now you need to make sure you have installed ssh in your debian server using the following command

    # apt-get install ssh

    Using SSHFS

    SSHFS is very simple to use. The following command

    $ sshfs user@host: mountpoint

    This will mount the home directory of the user@host account into the local directory named mountpoint. That’s as easy as it gets. (Of course, the mountpoint directory must already exist and have the appropriate permissions).

    Example

    create the mount point

    #mkdir /mnt/remote

    #chown [user-name]:[group-name] /mnt/remote/

    Add yourself to the fuse group

    adduser [your-user] fuse

    switch to your user and mount the remote filesystem.

    sshfs remote-user@remote.server:/remote/directory /mnt/remote/

    If you want to mount a directory other than the home directory, you can specify it after the colon. Actually, a generic sshfs command looks like this:

    $ sshfs [user@]host:[dir] mountpoint [options]

    Unmount Your Directory

    If you want to unmount your directory use the following command

    fusermount -u mountpoint

    Related content:

    1. Filesystem Encryption Tools for Linux
    2. Mount Network File systems (NFS,Samba) in Ubuntu
    3. File Server Configuration in Debian Using Samba
    4. WebDAV Configuration With Apache2 On Debian Etch
    5. aTFTP server and client installation and Configuration

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       Posted by at 10:34 am

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      • http://www.syntaxmonster.net John H

        Hi there, thanks alot for this tip! I am using it in conjunction with mondo rescue so i can burn my ISOs from different computers (and also because the computer that I’m backing up doesn’t have a lot of disk space, or a DVDburner).

        Once again, THANK YOU.

        John H =D

      • http://baldwinsoftware.com/blog/ tony

        This is incorrent.
        To ssh, one does user@ip.add.re.ss
        but to sshfs one does
        sshfs ip.add.re.ss:/remote/dir /local/mount/point

        The username is not part of the sshfs command.
        I know. I use that almost daily.

        ./tony

      • Toby

        man sshfs:

        SYNOPSIS
        mounting
        sshfs [user@]host:[dir] mountpoint [options]

        tony’s reply is only true if your remote host and your local host require the same UID.

      • Emanuel

        Here’s a tip for those who are puzzled as to why permissions might break, use the -o idmap=none option to disable mapping remote user id/group id from being applied to the local folder after mounting.

      • Trophy

        Thanks – you made my day.
        I use pre-shared keys to mount projects using following bash-script:

        /— snipp —/
        #!/bin/bash
        fusermount -u ~/my/mountpoint
        sshfs -o IdentityFile=~/my_keys/private_key user@myremotehost.com:/path/to/remote/dir/ ~/my/mountpoint
        /— snipp —/

        I added fusermount at the beginning to use the script to re-establish a connection.
        Hope it helps anyone.

      • korppi

        The user part is necessary if the remote user has different loginname.
        If you are logged in as ‘user1′

        ssh remote.location
        is analoguous to
        ssh user1@remote.location

        AND

        sshfs remote.location:/
        is analogous to
        sshfs user1@remote.location:/

        However, if you need to login to remote.location as ‘user2′, you need to specify user regardless of which program you are using.

        ssh user2@remote.location (or ssh remote.location -l user2)
        sshfs user2@remote.location:/

        With Linux there are usually half a dozen different ways for achieving your goal :)

      • whearn

        It is also not needed if you have the username listed in ~/.ssh/config

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