HOWTO: sshfs (mounting remote directories trough ssh)

[crazymonkey]

sshfs is a good way to easily mount folders from a remote host that you can access trough ssh. This tutorial assumes that you have openssh installed on the server. (Easy way: sudo apt-get install openssh-server)

On the client you will have to install sshfs and its dependencies (fuse-utils and libfuse2)

sudo apt-get install sshfs

Now load the fuse module :

sudo modprobe fuse

Create the directory where the share is to be mounted :

mkdir /home/user/local/mountpoint

*Of course change the path to fit your needs

You are now ready to mount the share :

sudo sshfs username@IPorHOSTNAME:/remote/folder/to/mount /home/user/local/mountpoint
Ex: sshfs bobbrown@bobserver.net:/home/bob /mnt/bobshome

Now you can use the remote directory as if it was local!

If you get an error saying :

fusermount: failed to open /dev/fuse: permission denied

adding your user to the fuse group should solve the issue.

sudo addgroup yourusername fuse

Additional recommended step
These steps are not required to make sshfs work but are recommended if you plan on using sshfs alot and will save you some time.

Add the fuse module to /etc/modules

sudo gedit /etc/modules

add fuse at the bottom of the list, this will load the fuse module each time you boot.

Change permissions of fusermount

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/fusermount

Once this is done you wont need to use sudo to mount directories using sshfs.

There is also the possibility to mount the share when you boot using /etc/fstab but I'm not sure how to do it yet.