sshfs

using sshfs

Usage does not require administrative privileges.

Mounting remote filesystems with sshfs

sshfs username@remotesystem:/full/path/to/directory /mount/point

For example, sshfs meyer@schl15:/nfs/userdocs/ps/meyer /sshfs would use schl15 as a host to access the directory /nfs/userdocs/ps/meyer (in other words, that user's NFS home directory).

Unmounting remote filesystems

umount /sshfs

On Linux, if you don't have root or sudo access, you can mount sshfs via a directory in your home directory. Just remember to specify the fill PATH to the directory. On Centos, you will need the fuse-sshfs package installed.

Setting up sshfs on OS X (Mac) systems

Installation requires administrative privileges.

Prior to installing, you should make sure that password-less ssh is configured correctly between the local system and the remote system.

  1. Download OSXFuse (dmg) (pkg) from http://osxfuse.github.io
  2. Open OSXFuse dmg , run installer
  3. Download SSHFS (pkg) from from http://osxfuse.github.io
  4. Run SSHFS installer pkg
  5. Create a folder to access the remote filesystems (aka a mount point): mkdir /sshfs/

OS X (Mac) helpful hints

A good example of mounting from OSX on your local system is as follows - sudo mkdir -p /sshfs/userdocs sudo chown -R $USER /sshfs /usr/local/bin/sshfs oconnor@crystal.harvard.edu:/nfs/userdocs /sshfs/userdocs -o volname=userdocs,reconnect,ServerAliveInterval=15,ServerAliveCountMax=3,idmap=user,auto_xattr,dev,suid,defer_permissions,noappledouble,noapplexattr,IdentityFile=$HOME/.ssh/sshfs-id_rsa

Basically, your local user needs to own the destination $PATH. We mount one complete filesystem from the remote site(avoids local Apple Finder issues). We give the volume a name (shows mount point on your desktop), add some additional options for server connections, etc. If you are using an ssh key you would add it's path to the IdentityFile paramater.

On occasion the mount wll become stuck and unresponsive, so you may be required to force unmount it before mounting it again. umount -f /sshfs