Recently, I wanted to find a simple way of mounting a remote Linux file system from my Macintosh laptop. And by “simple,” I wanted the procedure to consist of mostly downloading and installing a tool, running a command, and not having to delve too deeply into editing configuration files. Fortunately, I was able to figure this out without too much trouble, and thought I would record my experience here. The procedure involves two applications, FUSE For OS X and SSHFS, both of which can be found on the FUSE for OS X web site. FUSE for OS X is a library/framework for Mac OS X developers to establish remote connections; SSHFS is an application built upon the FUSE framework.
First, let’s establish some terminology. We’ll simply refer to the remote server that I wanted to connect to as the “Linux server” (at the domain “remoteserver”) and define my local machine as simply “my laptop.” We’ll call the file directory that I wanted to access on the Linux server as “/webapps”. In essence, I wanted to be able to access the folder “/webapps” on the Linux server as if it were a folder sitting on my laptop.
SSHFS for OSXFUSE is a filesystem client based on the SSH File Transfer Protocol. Since most SSH servers already support this protocol it is very easy to set up: on the server side, there's nothing to do; on the client side, mounting the filesystem is as easy as logging into the server with ssh. Dec 26, 2012 Mac OS X: use SSHFS to mount a remote directory as a volume Posted on December 26, 2012 November 10, 2014 by hb While working for amazingweb, I often need to edit existing files.
MacFUSE for Mac Download - The Easiest and Fastest Way to Create File Systems for Mac OS X. MacFUSE allows you to extend Mac OS X's native file handling capabilities via 3rd-party file systems SSHFS is a FUSE filesystem uses the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) as it's backend. SSHFS 2.5.0 Mac OS X 10.5 or later Intel or PowerPC Released on 03 Feb 2014 Recent Posts Archive Release of FUSE for macOS 3.11.2 Posted on 05 Oct 2020.
I’ll also note that I had already set up my SSH keys on my laptop and the Linux server. That needs to be accomplished before anything else. If you need guidance on that, here’s a simple tutorial.
After SSH had been set up:
- I downloaded the latest version of FUSE for OS X at the FUSE for OS X web site.
- I installed FUSE for OS X on my laptop by double-clicking the disk image, then double-clicking on the installation package. There is pretty standard Mac OS X stuff; it went without a hitch.
- I downloaded the latest version of SSHFS for OS X at the FUSE for OS X web site.
- I installed SSHFS by double-clicking on the downloaded file. I ran into an issue here where Mac OS X refused to install the package because SSHFS comes from an “unidentified developer.” To get around this, you need to override the Gatekeeper in Mac OS X, which can be as simple as right-clicking on the package and selecting “Open” from the context menu.
- Both FUSE for OS X and SSFHS were now installed.
- Next, I needed to create a new folder on my laptop which would serve as the mount point. Let’s call that folder “~/mountpoint.”
- Now, it was a matter of learning how to invoke the appropriate command to have my laptop mount the Linux server. The command I used was:
Using the above steps, I was able to successfully mount the Linux server. Unmounting is a piece of cake:
Additional notes:
The SSHFS command used to mount the remote server is lengthy; indeed, filled to the brim with arguments that I cut and pasted. If you would like to know what each argument does, there is a helpful guide that describes them.
–> Original Article at http://blog.philippklaus.de/2011/07/sshfs-on-mac-os-x-10-6-8-with-fuse4x/
Fuse4X is a port of FUSE – The Filesystem in Userspace to Mac OS X and allows you to mount all different kinds of remote / local filesystems on you Mac computer. A very popular ‘filesystem’ is sshfs, which allows you to mount a directory of a remote server to a local mountpoint (which is also a folder). You need to have access to the remote server via SSH to make this work.
Fuse4X is a modern replacement for the old MacFUSE implementation of Fuse for Mac OS.
You can either go to the website of the project, download, double click and install the files. Or you can use the terminal (what you should be able to do anyway if you know what SSH is and how to use it).
Using the terminal: The Homebrew variant:
The most recently accepted formula to install Fuse4X via Homebrew makes it really easy to install fuse4x and sshfs:
Using the terminal: The manual variant:
Here is how you can install it including SSHFS on the Terminal:
Whatever method you chose, you should be able to use the sshfs command on the terminal to mount remote filesystems via SSH access now. Options for Fuse4X (and therefore also SSHFS) can be found on http://fuse4x.org/options.html.
Here’s a quick example:
Mount Umask
When you are finished with the remote files and folders, you can unmount the directory simply using:
To uninstall Fuse4X, you may use the uninstall script uninstall.sh which has also been put into place on your machine by the installer:
Mac Os Mojave
To also get rid of sshfs, run:
Preventing the creation of .DS_Store files on network drives mounted via SSHFS
If you use your SSHFS mount with other operating system you may not like the creation of hidden Mac OS files in the folders of your mounted share. To prevent this behaviour, the simplest way is to mount the sshfs mount with the option noappledouble. (I found this option when trying to find out, how MacFusion does this when it offers this feature for each individual sshfs share. I found its implementation here.)
Alternatively, you can tell Mac OS to not create these files on any network shares using:
Apple Mac Os Sierra Download
which will write this setting to the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktopservices.plist file.
To delete .DS_Store files from previous use of that share with Mac OS X, you can run the following command to recursively delete all files with this name in the directory /path/to/share:
Resources
Sshfs For Mac Os High Sierra
- Website of the project: http://fuse4x.org/
- Preventing creation of .DS_Store files: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1629 and http://krypted.com/mac-os-x/no-more-ds_store-files/