Introduction
In many cases it can become cumbersome to transfer files to and from a
droplet. Imagine a development usage scenario where you are coding apps
remotely and find yourself uploading a script repeatedly to your
virtual server to test. This can become quite a hassle in a very short
period of time. Luckily there is a way to mount your VPS file system to
your local computer so you can make changes on the fly and treat your
droplet as local storage. In this article, we will show you how to do
exactly that.
Installing SSHFS
On Ubuntu/Debian
SSHFS is Linux based software that needs to be installed on your
local computer. On Ubuntu and Debian based systems it can be installed
through apt-get.
sudo apt-get install sshfs
On Mac OSX
You can install SHFS on Mac OSX. You will need to download FUSE and SSHFS from the
osxfuse site
On Windows
To install SSHFS in Windows you will need to grab the latest
win-sshfs package from the google code repository. A direct download
link can be found below. After you have downloaded the package, double
click to launch the installer. You may be prompted to download
additional files, if so the installer will download the .NET Framework
4.0 and install it for you.
https://win-sshfs.googlecode.com/files/win-sshfs-0.0.1.5-setup.exe
Mounting the Remote File System
The following instructions will work for both Ubuntu/Debian and OSX.
Instructions for Windows systems can be found at the bottom of the
tutorial.
To start we will need to create a local directory in which to mount the droplet's file system.
sudo mkdir /mnt/droplet <--replace code="" droplet="" prefer="" whatever="" you="">
Now we can use sshfs to mount the file system locally with the
following command. If your VPS was created with a password login the
following command will do the trick. You will be asked for your virtual
server's root password during this step.
sudo sshfs root@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/ /mnt/droplet
If your droplet is configured for login via ssh key authorization,
you will need to tell sshfs to use your public keys with the following
command. You will be asked to enter the passphrase you used during the
creation of your keys with ssh-keygen.
sudo sshfs -o IdentityFile=~/.ssh/id_rsa root@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/ /mnt/droplet
Now you can work with files on your droplet as if it were a physical
device attached to your local machine. For instance, if you move to the
/mnt/droplet directory on your local machine you can create a file
locally and the file will appear on your virtual server. Likewise you
can copy files into the /mnt/droplet folder and they will be uploaded to
your droplet in the background.
It is important to note that this process provides only a temporary
mount point to your droplet. If the virtual server or local machine is
powered off or restarted, you will need to use the same process to mount
it again.
Unmounting the Remote File System
When you no longer need the mount point you can simply unmount it with the command
sudo umount /mnt/droplet
Permanently Mounting the Remote File System
SSHFS also allows for setting up permanent mount points to remote
file systems. This would set a mount point that would persist through
restarts of both your local machine and droplets. In order to set up a
permanent mount point, we will need to edit the
/etc/fstab file on the local machine to automatically mount the file system each time the system is booted.
First we need to edit the
/etc/fstab file with a text editor.
sudo nano /etc/fstab
Scroll to the bottom of the file and add the following entry
sshfs#root@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/ /mnt/droplet
Save the changes to
/etc/fstab and reboot if necessary.
It should be noted that permanently mounting your VPS file system
locally is a potential security risk. If your local machine is
compromised it allows for a direct route to your droplet. Therefore it
is not recommended to setup permanent mounts on production servers.
Using Win-SSHFS to Mount Remote File Systems on Windows
After launching the win-sshfs program, you will be presented with a
graphical interface to make the process of mounting a remote file share
simple.
- Step 1: Click the Add button in the lower left corner of the window.
- Step 2: Enter a name for the file share in the Drive Name field.
- Step 3. Enter the IP of your droplet in the Host field.
- Step 4. Enter your SSH port. (Leave as port 22 unless you have changed the SSH port manually).
- Step 5. Enter your username in the Username field. (Unless you have set up user accounts manually you will enter
root in this field).
- Step 6. Enter your SSH password in the password field. (Note on
Windows you will need to have your droplet configured for password
logins rather than ssh-key-authentication).
- Step 7. Enter your desired mount point in the Directory field. (Enter
/ to mount the file system from root. Likewise you can enter /var/www or ~/ for your home directory).
- Step 8. Select the drive letter you would like Windows to use for your droplets file system.
- Step 9. Click the Mount button to connect to the droplet and mount the file system.
Now your virtual server's file system will be available through My Computer as the drive letter you chose in step 8.
Usage of the Remote Mount Point
The remote mount behaves similarly to locally mounted storage: you
are able to create, copy, move, edit, compress or perform any file
system operations you would be able to do on the droplet, but you are
not able to launch programs or scripts on the remote server.
One typical usage of this would be if you host a website on your VPS
and need to make changes to the website on a regular basis. Mounting the
file system locally allows you to launch whatever code editor, IDE, or
text editor you wish to edit the site, and any changes you make will
reflect on the virtual server as soon as they are made on your local
machine.
Similarly, on droplets used for testing purposes of coding projects,
it allows for much simpler code modifications which can be tested
immediately without the need to modify the code locally as well as
remotely (and eliminates the hassle of uploading new copies of files for
small code changes).
REFERENCES
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-use-sshfs-to-mount-remote-file-systems-over-ssh
