How To Use SSHFS to Mount Remote File Systems Over SSH

Last Validated on November 9, 2016 Originally Published on December 23, 2013

Introduction

In many cases it can become cumbersome to transfer files to and from a droplet. Imagine a development usage scenario where you are coding apps remotely and find yourself uploading a script repeatedly to your virtual server to test. This can become quite a hassle in a very short period of time. Luckily there is a way to mount your VPS file system to your local computer so you can make changes on the fly and treat your droplet as local storage. In this article, we will show you how to do exactly that.

Installing SSHFS

On Ubuntu/Debian

SSHFS is Linux based software that needs to be installed on your local computer. On Ubuntu and Debian based systems it can be installed through apt-get.

On Mac OSX

You can install SSHFS on Mac OSX. You will need to download FUSE and SSHFS from the osxfuse site

On Windows

To install SSHFS in Windows you will need to grab the latest win-sshfs package from the google code repository. A direct download link can be found below. After you have downloaded the package, double click to launch the installer. You may be prompted to download additional files, if so the installer will download the .NET Framework 4.0 and install it for you.

Mounting the Remote File System

The following instructions will work for both Ubuntu/Debian and OSX. Instructions for Windows systems can be found at the bottom of the tutorial.

To start we will need to create a local directory in which to mount the droplet’s file system.

Now we can use sshfs to mount the file system locally with the following command. If your VPS was created with a password login the following command will do the trick. You will be asked for your virtual server’s root password during this step.

If your droplet is configured for login via ssh key authorization, you will need to tell sshfs to use your public keys with the following command. You will be asked to enter the passphrase you used during the creation of your keys with ssh-keygen.

In case that you don’t have your SSH key stored under the root user, you would need to specify the full path to the private SSH key as follows:

Make sure to change the your_user part with your actual user.

Now you can work with files on your droplet as if it were a physical device attached to your local machine. For instance, if you move to the /mnt/droplet directory on your local machine you can create a file locally and the file will appear on your virtual server. Likewise, you can copy files into the /mnt/droplet folder and they will be uploaded to your droplet in the background.

It is important to note that this process provides only a temporary mount point to your droplet. If the virtual server or local machine is powered off or restarted, you will need to use the same process to mount it again.

Unmounting the Remote File System

When you no longer need the mount point you can simply unmount it with the command

Permanently Mounting the Remote File System

SSHFS also allows for setting up permanent mount points to remote file systems. This would set a mount point that would persist through restarts of both your local machine and droplets. In order to set up a permanent mount point, we will need to edit the /etc/fstab file on the local machine to automatically mount the file system each time the system is booted.

First we need to edit the /etc/fstab file with a text editor.

Scroll to the bottom of the file and add the following entry

Save the changes to /etc/fstab and reboot if necessary.

It should be noted that permanently mounting your VPS file system locally is a potential security risk. If your local machine is compromised it allows for a direct route to your droplet. Therefore it is not recommended to setup permanent mounts on production servers.

Using Win-SSHFS to Mount Remote File Systems on Windows

After launching the win-sshfs program, you will be presented with a graphical interface to make the process of mounting a remote file share simple.

Step 1: Click the Add button in the lower left corner of the window.

Step 2: Enter a name for the file share in the Drive Name field.

Step 3. Enter the IP of your droplet in the Host field.

Step 4. Enter your SSH port. (Leave as port 22 unless you have changed the SSH port manually).

Step 5. Enter your username in the Username field. (Unless you have set up user accounts manually you will enter root in this field).

Step 6. Enter your SSH password in the password field. (Note on Windows you will need to have your droplet configured for password logins rather than ssh-key-authentication).

Step 7. Enter your desired mount point in the Directory field. (Enter / to mount the file system from root. Likewise you can enter /var/www or

/ for your home directory).

Step 8. Select the drive letter you would like Windows to use for your droplets file system.

Step 9. Click the Mount button to connect to the droplet and mount the file system.

Now your virtual server’s file system will be available through My Computer as the drive letter you chose in step 8.

Usage of the Remote Mount Point

The remote mount behaves similarly to locally mounted storage: you are able to create, copy, move, edit, compress or perform any file system operations you would be able to do on the droplet, but you are not able to launch programs or scripts on the remote server.

One typical usage of this would be if you host a website on your VPS and need to make changes to the website on a regular basis. Mounting the file system locally allows you to launch whatever code editor, IDE, or text editor you wish to edit the site, and any changes you make will reflect on the virtual server as soon as they are made on your local machine.

Similarly, on droplets used for testing purposes of coding projects, it allows for much simpler code modifications which can be tested immediately without the need to modify the code locally as well as remotely (and eliminates the hassle of uploading new copies of files for small code changes).

Ssh mount from windows

SSHFS-Win · SSHFS for Windows

Download

GUI Frontends

SSHFS-Win is a minimal port of SSHFS to Windows. Under the hood it uses Cygwin for the POSIX environment and WinFsp for the FUSE functionality.

• Install the latest version of WinFsp.
• Install the latest version of SSHFS-Win. Choose the x64 or x86 installer according to your computer’s architecture.

Once you have installed WinFsp and SSHFS-Win you can map a network drive to a directory on an SSHFS host using Windows Explorer or the net use command.

In Windows Explorer select This PC > Map Network Drive and enter the desired drive letter and SSHFS path using the following UNC syntax:

The first time you map a particular SSHFS path you will be prompted for the SSHFS username and password. You may choose to save these credentials with the Windows Credential Manager in which case you will not be prompted again.

In order to unmap the drive, right-click on the drive icon in Windows Explorer and select Disconnect.

You can map a network drive from the command line using the net use command:

You can list your net use drives:

Finally you can unmap the drive as follows:

The complete UNC syntax is as follows:

• REMUSER is the remote user (i.e. the user on the SSHFS host whose credentials are being used for access).
• HOST is the SSHFS host.
• PORT is the remote port on the SSHFS host (optional; default is 22).
• PATH is the remote path. This is interpreted as follows:
  • The sshfs prefix maps to HOST:

  REMUSER/PATH on the SSHFS host (i.e. relative to REMUSER ‘s home directory).

• The sshfs.r prefix maps to HOST:/PATH on the SSHFS host (i.e. relative to the HOST ‘s root directory).
• The sshfs.k prefix maps to HOST:

  REMUSER/PATH and uses the ssh key in %USERPROFILE%/.ssh/id_rsa (where %USERPROFILE% is the home directory of the local Windows user).

• The sshfs.kr prefix maps to HOST:/PATH and uses the ssh key in %USERPROFILE%/.ssh/id_rsa .

LOCUSER is the local Windows user (optional; USERNAME or DOMAIN+USERNAME format).

• Please note that this functionality is rarely necessary with latest versions of WinFsp.

There are currently 2 GUI front ends for SSHFS-Win: SiriKali and SSHFS-Win-Manager.

SiriKali is a GUI front end for SSHFS-Win (and other file systems). Instructions on setting up SiriKali for SSHFS-Win can be found at this link. Please report problems with SiriKali in its issues page.

• Password authentication.
• Public key authentication.
• Key Agents and KeePass 2.

SSHFS-Win-Manager is a new GUI front end specifically for SSHFS-Win with a user-friendly and intuitive interface. SSHFS-Win-Manager integrates well with Windows and can be closed to the system tray. Please report problems with SSHFS-Win-Manager in its issues page.

• Password authentication.
• Public key authentication.

It is possible to use the sshfs-win.exe and sshfs.exe programs directly for advanced usage scenarios. Both programs can be found in the bin subdirectory of the SSHFS-Win installation (usually \Program Files\SSHFS-Win\bin ).

The sshfs-win.exe program is useful to launch sshfs.exe from a cmd.exe prompt ( sshfs-win cmd ) or to launch sshfs.exe under the control of the WinFsp Launcher ( sshfs-win svc ). The sshfs-win.exe program SHOULD NOT be used from Cygwin. The sshfs-win.exe program has the following usage:

The sshfs.exe program can be used with an existing Cygwin installation, but it requires prior installation of FUSE for Cygwin on that Cygwin installation. FUSE for Cygwin is included with WinFsp and can be installed on a Cygwin installation by executing the command:

This is a simple project:

• sshfs is a submodule pointing to the original SSHFS project.
• sshfs-win.c is a simple wrapper around the sshfs program that is used to implement the «Map Network Drive» functionality.
• sshfs-win.wxs is a the Wix file that describes the SSHFS-Win installer.
• patches is a directory with a couple of simple patches over SSHFS.
• Makefile drives the overall process of building SSHFS-Win and packaging it into an MSI.

In order to build SSHFS-Win you will need Cygwin and the following Cygwin packages:

You will also need:

FUSE for Cygwin. It is included with WinFsp and can be installed on a Cygwin installation by executing the command:

Wix toolset. This is a native Windows package that is used to build the SSHFS-Win MSI installer.

• Open a Cygwin prompt.
• Change directory to the sshfs-win repository.
• Issue make .
• The sshfs-win repository includes the upstream SSHFS project as a submodule; if you have not already done so, you must initialize it with git submodule update —init sshfs .

SSHFS-Win uses the same license as SSHFS, which is GPLv2+. It interfaces with WinFsp which is GPLv3 with a FLOSS exception.

It also packages the following components:

• Cygwin: LGPLv3
• GLib2: LGPLv2
• SSH: «all components are under a BSD licence, or a licence more free than that»

Mounting SSH/SFTP shares on Windows 7 [duplicate]

I’m fairly unfamiliar with Windows, especially Windows 7, but using it for a school project; essentially I have a directory accessible through SSH that I would want to mount in Windows 7 the same way you would do it through sshfs in Linux or OS X, but I don’t know of any FUSE port for Windows 7. Does anyone know any easy way to accomplish this in Windows 7?

(Just a regular SFTP client like FileZilla would work, but I’d prefer not to have to manually transfer the file(s) over for compilation every time I make a change, so something that mounts it as a local volume is preferred.)

1 Answer 1

Take a look at Dokan SSHFS for Windows. Dokan SSHFS is a program that mounts remote file systems using SSH. You will need to install the MSVC 2005 redistributable and the Dokan library available on the SSHFS download page.

Another solution is to use MindTerm along with NetDrive (both have free home versions):

1. Download and extract mindTerm
2. Run mindterm.jar (double click it if you can, otherwise in command prompt type in java -jar mindterm.jar)
3. Type in the host you want to ssh into followed by the username and password
4. In the menu click on Plugins>FTP To SFTP Bridge…
5. Type in 127.0.0.1 for the Listen address
6. Type in 21 for the Listen port
7. Select the Remote system type
8. Click Enable
9. Click Dismiss
10. Next we want to install NetDrive
11. Once netdrive is installed, open it up, and click New Site on the bottom
12. Type in localhost (or whatever you want to call it) for the Site name
13. Type in localhost for the Site IP
14. Type in 21 for the Port
15. Select FTP for the Port
16. Select a Drive letter
17. Check Connect as anonymous
18. Click Save
19. Click Connect
20. Click the X to close the window (will minimize to system tray)

There you have it! A SSH/SFTP connection as a drive in Windows. I have tested it in Windows Vista, however it should work just fine in Windows XP.

Монтируем удаленную файловую систему через SSH.

Во время работы часто приходится работать с удаленными файлами, часто через ssh. Gnome позволяет подключиться и работать с данными с помощью утилиты Places->Connect to Server, но, к сожалению, таким образом могут работать не все программы… Vim, например, а так как это основной мой редактор — я искал способ сделать это. И нашел 🙂

Все, что написано дальше — касается Linux, в частности Ubuntu Linux.
Итак, способ: смонтировать удаленую систему так же, как вы монтируете локальные диски. Сделать такое возможно с поомщью утилиты sshfs.
Для начала надо ее установить вместе с несколькими зависимостями:

$sudo apt-get install sshfs

Потом нужно добавить себя в группу пользователей fuse. Сделать это надо, потому что программа устанавливвается в системные папки, в которые обычным пользователям доступ запрещен. Так, добавляем себя в группу:

$sudo adduser fuse

Потом создаем директорию для монтирования, например, на рабочем столе:

Теперь надо выйти с терминала и зайти вновь. Все, теперь мы в группе fuse. Пробуем соединиться с сервером:

Если соединение идет не по ключу то, скорее всего, у вас появится запрос на введение пароля с удаленной машины.
Если же вы сразу не получили ошибку fusermount: fuse device not found, try ‘modprobe fuse’ first — проверяйте директорию, там должны появиться файлики :). Если же вылезла ошибка — значит модуль ядра fuse не загрузился автоматом, пробуем загрузить вручную:

$sudo modprobe fuse

Пробуем установить соединение еще раз.
Чтобы отмонтировать это все дело, надо выполнить следующее:

Чтобы каждый раз не вводить такую кучу комманд — создаем(если нету) и редактируем файл

/.bash_aliases, добавляя в конец такие строчки:

alias testssh=’sshfs user@example.com:/stuff

/Desktop/test_ssh’
alias testssh_umount=’fusermount -u

Теперь вы сможете монтировать удаленную машину командой testssh, а размонтировать — testssh_umount 🙂

Cпасибо за внимание!

ЗЫ Статью сначала перевел с английского на украинский, добавил немного своего и перевел на русский для Хабра 🙂