How to mount remote directory using SSHFS

Samba (SMB) and NFS can be too complicated to mount directories between computers on a home network. If both the remote and local computers are running Linux then an easier method is to use SSHFS.

• Installing SSHFS is easy:

$ sudo apt install sshfs

• Create a local directory where you want to mount the remote directory:

$ mkdir my_local_dir

• Make sure you can already SSH to your remote computer:

$ ssh my_remote_login@my_remote_computer

• To mount your remote directory using SSHFS to the local directory you created earlier:

$ sshfs my_remote_login@my_remote_computer:/some/remote/path my_local_dir

Now you can browse the directory both from shell or any GUI file explorer. All normal file operations works seamlessly, including deletion.

• If you are on a unstable connection and would like SSHFS to automatically reconnect to maintain the mount:

$ sshfs -o reconnect my_remote_login@my_remote_computer:/some/remote/path my_local_dir

• To unmount the remote directory:

$ fusermount -u my_local_dir

Note that your user needs to have sudo permissions to be able to unmount the directory.

Tried with: SSHFS 2.5 and Ubuntu 14.04