View source for Mounting a remote disk using sshfs in Ubuntu 7.04

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==Background==

I have two computers running Ubuntu 7.04 and one windows box running Windows XP.  In [[Installing samba and activating rdesktop on Ubuntu 7.04]], I described how I set up an Ubuntu box and the Windows box so they could share each others disks - i.e., each could read and write to the disks for the other as if the disks were locally mounted.  It occurred to me that, if one can share disks between Ubuntu and XP, one should also be able to "mount" a remote Ubuntu disk.  Indeed one can and one can do it securely - i.e., the remote disk can be somewhere out there on the net.  The protocols are based on ssh and the magic command is sshfs.

''Assumption:'' ssh is installed on the remote computer.

==Useful web site==

The website [http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/10/28/how-to-mount-a-remote-ssh-filesystem-using-sshfs/ Mount a remote ssh filesystem] tells one how to do such a set up.

==How to do it==

I will repeat the instructions here and comment about my experiences with setting up this disk sharing.

Let us suppose your userID is '''itsME''' locally and '''itsMEonRemote''' on the remote computer.  (My userID is actually the same on both computers so I have not tested this with two different userIDs.)  Also assume the remote computer is '''myRemote.univ.edu'''.  The following instructions should do the trick.

1. Install sshfs and related packages

<source lang=sh>sudo apt-get install sshfs</source>

(or use the Synaptic Package Manager).  Installed will be sshfs, fuse-utils and libfuse2.

2. Set up a local mount point

<source lang=sh>sudo mkdir /media/myRemoteDisk</source>

and give yourself ownership

<source lang=sh>sudo chown itsME:itsME /media/myRemoteDisk</source>

3. Add yourself to the group '''fuse'''
<source lang=sh>sudo add-user itsME fuse</source>

4. Make sure that the group fuse has access to the command /usr/bin/fusermount

<source lang=sh>ls -al /usr/bin/fusermount</source>

If not change ownership so that it does:

<source lang=sh>sudo chown root:fuse /usr/bin/fusermount</source>

5. Make sure that the group fuse has access to the file /dev/fuse

<source lang=sh>ls -al /dev/fuse</source>

If not change ownership so it does

<source lang=sh>sudo chown root:fuse /dev/fuse</source>

6. The above web site says you should logout (not shutdown) and log back in.  I did this but am not sure it is required.  

7. Mount your remote disk

<source lang=sh>sshfs -o transform_symlinks myRemote.univ.edu:/home/itsMEonRemote /media/myRemoteDisk</source>

The disk should appear on your desktop.  You should be able to access it as if it is a local disk.  Do not forget the option to transform symbolic links, or you will get some unexpected behavior when trying to following them on the remote machine (if the path exists on your local machine, you will end up following it to a local target instead.  If the path does not exist locally, you will get a broken link message.)

==Some comments==

The above web site mentions what to do if you encounter the error message "fusermount: fuse device not found, try ‘modprobe fuse’ first."  I did not have this problem so I am assuming my system already includes this module.

[[Category:Miscellany]]