Sharing mount points on GNU/Linux with SSHFS

Secure Shell FileSystem (SSHFS) is a file system for Linux systems that uses the rewritten implementation of the FUSE module, developed by Miklos Szeredi, who also wrote SSHFS, allowing you to mount a file system from an SSH server using that same protocol. On Windows, you can use SSHFS-Win by Bill Zissimopoulos to mount the network drive.

In this article, we will briefly explain how to use this file system, mounting it manually and automatically with fstab.

Installing and mounting a file system

On the client machine, install the following packages:

# apt install sshfs fuse

Next, check that FUSE is loaded in the kernel:

# grep -i fuse /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/modules.builtin

The following should appear:

kernel/fs/fuse/fuse.ko

If it does not appear, enable it:

# modprobe fuse

Next, create the location where you will mount the file system:

# mkdir /root/sshfs

Then simply specify the remote directory and the destination directory:

# sshfs -o allow_other root@dirección_IP:/root /root/sshfs

You will be prompted for the remote SSH server's password. Once you enter it, the directory will be mounted (example):

root@clientesshfs:~# ls -la /root/sshfs/
  total 56
  drwx------ 1 root root 4096 Jan 4 14:33 .
  drwx------ 8 root root 4096 Jan 4 17:59 ..
  drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Jan 4 14:33 .ansible
  -rw------- 1 root root 5 Jan 4 17:40 .bash_history
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3106 Dec 5 2019 .bashrc
  drwx------ 1 root root 4096 Jun 15 2020 .cache
  drwx------ 1 root root 4096 Jun 15 2020 .config
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 161 Dec 5 2019 .profile
  drwx------ 1 root root 4096 Jan 4 14:33 .ssh
  -rw------- 1 root root 14008 Aug 26 16:11 .viminfo
  -rw------- 1 root root 110 Dec 21 10:22 .Xauthority

How to mount the file system automatically

The most practical and secure way to mount the SSHFS file system automatically when the operating system starts is to use SSH keys for this purpose. You will therefore need to create a key on the client machine and copy/transfer it to the remote server.

We explain the process below, but you can find more information in Creating keys with ssh-keygen.

First, create the SSH key with ssh-keygen:

# ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

Once it has been created, you can use the utility included with ssh-keygen itself to transfer it:

# ssh-copy-id root@direcciónIP

You will be prompted for the remote server's password to store the key, and a message should appear indicating that it has been added:

Number of key(s) added: 1

Once this is done, check that you can log in without being prompted for the remote server user's password. If you can, you will be able to mount the file system through fstab using the key.

To do this, edit the fstab file:

# vi /etc/fstab

And add the following line at the end (modify it if necessary):

root@direcciónIP:/root /root/sshfs fuse.sshfs noauto,x-systemd.automount,_netdev,users,idmap=user,IdentityFile=/root/.ssh/id_rsa,allow_other,reconnect 0 0

Once this is done, the file system will mount automatically when the operating system starts.

We hope this tutorial has helped you 🙂. Remember, if you have any questions about this or anything else related to your servers on Clouding, feel free to write to soporte@clouding.io We're here for whatever you need!