SSHFS — Mount Remote Directories over SSH

SSHFS mounts any directory from an SSH-accessible machine as a local folder using FUSE. It requires only an SSH server on the remote — no special server-side software or configuration is needed beyond a working SSH connection. SSHFS is pre-installed on Shani OS.

See the OpenSSH wiki page for SSH setup, key generation, and the ~/.ssh/config shortcuts used in the examples below.

---

Mounting

# Mount a remote directory
sshfs user@hostname:/home/user/projects ~/mnt/remote-projects

# Use a non-standard SSH port
sshfs -p 2222 user@hostname:/data ~/mnt/server

# Mount with reconnect and keepalive (survives brief network drops)
sshfs user@hostname:/data ~/mnt/server \
  -o reconnect,ServerAliveInterval=15,ServerAliveCountMax=3

# Use an SSH config alias (from ~/.ssh/config)
sshfs shanios:/home/youruser ~/mnt/shanios

# Unmount
fusermount -u ~/mnt/remote-projects

---

Useful Mount Options

Pass options with -o option1,option2:

| Option | Effect | |--------|--------| | reconnect | Automatically reconnect if the connection drops | | ServerAliveInterval=15 | Send a keepalive every 15 seconds | | ServerAliveCountMax=3 | Disconnect after 3 unanswered keepalives | | follow_symlinks | Follow symlinks on the remote (disabled by default for safety) | | cache=yes | Enable attribute caching (faster, but stale if files change externally) | | uid=1000,gid=1000 | Map remote files to a specific local UID/GID | | allow_other | Allow other local users to access the mount (requires user_allow_other in /etc/fuse.conf) | | idmap=user | Map remote user to local user by name |

---

Auto-mount at Login (fstab)

Add to /etc/fstab:

user@hostname:/home/user/projects  /home/user/mnt/remote  fuse.sshfs  defaults,_netdev,reconnect,uid=1000,gid=1000,IdentityFile=/home/user/.ssh/id_ed25519  0 0

Apply without rebooting:

sudo mount -a

Note: fstab SSHFS mounts require the SSH key to be usable without an interactive passphrase (use ssh-agent or a key without a passphrase for system-level mounts).

---

Auto-mount on Access (systemd .mount unit)

For mounts that should activate on demand rather than at boot:

Create ~/.config/systemd/user/mnt-remote.mount:

[Unit]
Description=SSHFS Mount — Remote Server
After=network-online.target

[Mount]
What=user@hostname:/home/user/projects
Where=/home/user/mnt/remote
Type=fuse.sshfs
Options=reconnect,ServerAliveInterval=15,IdentityFile=%h/.ssh/id_ed25519

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now mnt-remote.mount

---

Troubleshooting

| Issue | Solution | |-------|----------| | fuse: bad mount point | Create the mount point first: mkdir -p ~/mnt/remote-projects | | Transport endpoint is not connected after network drop | Unmount the stale mount: fusermount -u ~/mnt/remote-projects then remount; use reconnect option to avoid this | | Very slow file listing | Disable host key DNS lookups in ~/.ssh/config with UseDNS no; enable attribute caching with -o cache=yes | | Permission denied | Confirm SSH key auth works first: ssh user@hostname; check that the remote path exists and is readable by that user | | Mount disappears after suspend/resume | Use reconnect,ServerAliveInterval=15 options; alternatively, use a systemd mount unit with Restart=on-failure |