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.

[MighMoS]

Is there a way to have this do port forwarding as well?

[capitalistpiglet]

It took me a while to work it out but finally i found a way to automount sshfs on startup so ill share it here.

first of all you need to create a public/private key pair for the server your logging into so you dont have to use a password.

ssh-keygen -t rsa

Just keep hitting return you dont have to wory about any of the options.
then cd to the ssh directory

cd ~/.ssh

if there is authorized_keys file already in the .ssh directory back it up.

cp authorized_keys authorized_keys$

then

cat *.pub >> authorized_keys

Then copy the auhorized_keys to the ~/.ssh directory of the server and you can then ssh in without a password.
once that is done you can create a simple script in your ~/.kde/Autostart directory to mount it all when you login. (not sure where the autostart directory is in gnome)

!/bin/bash
 # mount sshfs drive
sshfs 192.168.1.101:/directory /mnt/to/whereever

then make the script executable

chmod a+x nameofscript

And your done.
I hope this helps someone.

[rune_kg]

Hey man

Great howto thx. Worked out of the box on both dapper and breezy for me. Did anyone compare speed and responsiveness with openvpn solutions???

CYA
Rune Kaagaard
http://rune@runelyd.dk

[jetpeach]

Thanks for the howto.
One question: I'm trying to get write access to my sshfs fuse mounted directories. but even using -o uid=[group id e.g.1000] which mounts it with my user id, i still can't write to the shares unless i am root.

So I thought it might be a fuse permissions thing and added myself to the fuse group as you said, and then changed the permissions as you suggested. But I still can't mount shared without sudo first, without sudo i still get
fuse: failed to exec fusermount: Permission denied
- any thoughts on this? Were others able to mount all your shares without sudo and do they then get mounted with the correct permissions such that you can write to them? I checked that I am in the fuse group in the control panels (I am) and that the group on /dev/fuse and /usr/bin/fusermount is fuse and is executable.

Thanks!
jet

EDIT: all that and it seems at least the problem with permissions simply required a reboot - probably to load the fuse modules with the new permissions.... But still I can't write to the directories - the permissions say they're all mine and writable but they aren't.

EDIT: more info, i found it interesting the difference I get now that I'm adding it under my account, it seems it's not a permissions but that it's not allowing the "operation???"
jet@ubuntu:~/rsync$ sudo mkdir asdf
mkdir: cannot create directory `asdf': Permission denied
jet@ubuntu:~/rsync$ mkdir asdf
mkdir: cannot create directory `asdf': Operation not permitted

[ner0tic]

i'm having a strange issue...

ner0tic@blackhawk:/mnt$ rm vendetta
rm: cannot remove `vendetta': Is a directory
ner0tic@blackhawk:/mnt$ rm -r vendetta
rm: cannot lstat `vendetta': Permission denied
ner0tic@blackhawk:/mnt$ sudo rm -r vendetta
rm: cannot lstat `vendetta': No such file or directory
ner0tic@blackhawk:/mnt$ mkdir vendetta
mkdir: cannot create directory `vendetta': File exists

this is my sshfs mount point. i followed the steps and it all looked good but i can't access it nor remove it. it acts as if it's not there when it is

[jetpeach]

i think the problem is even sudo doesn't have permission to remove your mountpoint until after it is unmounted (it is currently mounted when you tried to remove it?). try
sudo umount /mnt/vendetta
after that you should be able to remove it with sudo rm etc...

[jis]

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.

Now

ls -l /usr/bin/fusermount

outputs

-rwsr-xr-x 1 root fuse 18328 2006-05-11 20:45 /usr/bin/fusermount

Then I try to mount using sshfs without sudo, and first it asks password, but after I return it, I get

fusermount: user has no write access to mountpoint /media/kielo

So it did not help. However, if I change permissions of my mountpoint like this

sudo chmod a+w /media/kielo

, I can mount the directory by sshfs without using sudo.

[jetpeach]

jis, this behavior makes sense to me at least. the normal user can't write to /media/kielo so a normal user can't mount something there either unless the permissions of it are changed.

your solutions of changing the permissions of /media/kielo is fine (though i wouldn't make it all writable, just change the ownership or something, all isn't good practice for security) or, as i do, just use a mount point in your users home directory, something like /home/yourUsername/kielo (make the directory first of course). then it's just like any other folder in your home directory and you'll be able to mount there.

of course, i haven't been able to fix the write problems after mounting that i've described above still.

[jis]

jetpeach, I had have the same permissions drwxr-xr-x for /media/floppy than for /media/kielo before and I can mount /media/floppy for writing but could not mount /media/kielo with sshfs. Mount program did change the ownership of /media/floppy from root to my current local user account. When I later changed permissions of /media/kielo as described before, and then mounted by sshfs, it changed ownership to some number and permissions to drwx--x--x .

I don't know if there is any advantage of using a mount point in /home. How could an attacker use unmounted /media/kielo? (If the mount point is not empty, sshfs outputs

fusermount: mountpoint is not empty
fusermount: if you are sure this is safe, use the 'nonempty' mount option

and does not mount there.) But anyway using mount point in /home is not less safe for sure, so thanks for the hint.