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filesystem, fuse, ssh

SSH: SSH filesystem

SSHFS (SSH Filesystem) mounts a remote filesystem in your local tree via SSH and FUSE. No NFS, no SMB, no server configuration: just SSH (which the server already has) and FUSE (which the client has). The remote filesystem appears as a local directory, with all standard tools (cp, mv, find, grep, vim).

The mount

mkdir /mnt/remote
sshfs user@server:/home/user /mnt/remote

After this command, /mnt/remote IS /home/user on server. All standard tools work:

ls /mnt/remote
cp /data/local.txt /mnt/remote/
grep -r "pattern" /mnt/remote/

The unmount

fusermount -u /mnt/remote

fusermount (not umount) is the FUSE unmount tool: it signals the FUSE daemon that the mount should end and FUSE closes the SSH connection.

The options that change everything

sshfs user@server:/home/user /mnt/remote \
      -o reconnect \
      -o ServerAliveInterval=15 \
      -o idmap=user \
      -o uid=$(id -u) -o gid=$(id -g)
  • reconnect : automatic reconnection on disconnect
  • ServerAliveInterval=15 : SSH keepalive every 15s (avoids timeout of idle connections)
  • idmap=user : maps local UIDs to remote UIDs (otherwise, all files belong to the UID that mounted)
  • uid/gid : the local UID/GID for the mount (otherwise, root)

SSHFS vs NFS vs fish

SSHFS needs nothing server-side (SSH is enough). NFS needs an NFS daemon, configured exports and open ports (static or not). Fish needs KDE and cannot be used by non-KDE processes.

SSHFS is the simplest to deploy (SSH + FUSE client-side), the slowest (everything goes through SSH: every read/write is an encrypted round-trip) and the most secure (everything is encrypted, everything is authenticated). For a permanent mount on a LAN, NFS is faster. For a one-off mount over WAN, SSHFS is the only one that requires no server config.

[edit: 2026] SSHFS remains the standard SSH mount, FUSE has matured (the kernel module is in mainline since 2.6.14) and SSHFS is still slower than NFS (the SSH encryption costs). Alternatives have appeared: rclone mount (S3, GDrive, etc.), NFS over WireGuard and 9p over virtiofs for VMs. But SSHFS remains the “one-liner” that works: sshfs user@host:/path /mnt and the remote filesystem is there. SSH latency remains the bottleneck for intensive I/O and that is the price of encryption and the single-channel design.