While working for amazingweb, I often need to edit existing files. This can be done with the web-based management UI but it’s so much nicer to be able to use the same editors and tools you’re used to on your local machine.
In order to be able to do this, you need either to have your editors/tools support SFTP and get and put files on the fly or be able to mount the remote file system as a volume on your local machine. Even if you find some solutions for a few of your editors (e.g. the Sublime Text editor with the SFTP plugin) you’ll still not be able to do everything as if it was all local because at least one tool doesn’t support SFTP.
So the more generic solution is to mount the remote file system. Of course since your remote server is remote and needs to be secured, you can only access it using SSH. Fortunately, SSH provides many extensions, some of which are used by pretty much everybody (e.g. SFTP) and others which are less known.
One of these extensions is SSHFS (Secure SHell FileSystem). It implements a file system and can be used on the Linux operating system and other platforms where FUSE is ready. FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) is a kernel module for Unix systems, which enables file system drivers to shift from kernel mode to user mode. It thus allows non-privileged users to mount their own file systems.
In the past MacFUSE used to be the most prominent FUSE implementation for Max OS X. MacFUSE is not maintained anymore and has been replaced by “FUSE for OS X” (OSXFUSE). An alternative is Fuse4X which is a fork off MacFUSE but unlike MacFUSE it is fully compatible with FUSE.
I’ve used Fuse4X and it worked fine so I haven’t tried OSXFUSE.
You have three ways install Fuse4X:
- Download it from here and install it manually.
- Install it using Macport:
sudo port install fuse4x
- Install it using Homebrew:
brew install fuse4x
I used Homebrew and got the following errors:
Warning: Could not link fuse4x. Unlinking...
Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
You can try again using `brew link fuse4x'
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/fuse4x/0.9.2: 18 files, 720K, built in 34 seconds
Error: You must `brew link fuse4x' before sshfs can be installed
Unfortunately it doesn’t tell you what’s the actual problem… So I just did what I was told to:
$ brew link fuse4x
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/fuse4x/0.9.2... Warning: Could not link fuse4x. Unlinking...
Error: Could not symlink file: /usr/local/Cellar/fuse4x/0.9.2/lib/pkgconfig/fuse.pc
Target /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/fuse.pc already exists. You may need to delete it.
To force the link and delete this file, do:
brew link --overwrite formula_name
To list all files that would be deleted:
brew link --overwrite --dry-run formula_name
Ok, so let’s do it with --overwrite:
$ brew link --overwrite fuse4x
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/fuse4x/0.9.2... 7 symlinks created
It’s installed !
Ok, now that you have installed Fuse4X using one of the three methods above, you’ll need to install sshfs.
With Homebrew, it is pretty easy:
$ brew install sshfs
==> Installing sshfs dependency: xz
==> Downloading http://tukaani.org/xz/xz-5.0.4.tar.bz2
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/xz/5.0.4
==> make install
/usr/local/Cellar/xz/5.0.4: 58 files, 1.5M, built in 41 seconds
==> Installing sshfs dependency: libffi
==> Downloading http://mirrors.kernel.org/sources.redhat.com/libffi/libffi-3.0.11.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/libffi/3.0.11
==> make install
==> Caveats
This formula is keg-only: so it was not symlinked into /usr/local.
Mac OS X already provides this software and installing another version in
parallel can cause all kinds of trouble.
Some formulae require a newer version of libffi.
Generally there are no consequences of this for you. If you build your
own software and it requires this formula, you'll need to add to your
build variables:
LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/opt/libffi/lib
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/libffi/3.0.11: 13 files, 312K, built in 19 seconds
==> Installing sshfs dependency: glib
==> Downloading http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/glib/2.34/glib-2.34.2.tar.xz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Downloading patches
######################################################################## 100.0%
######################################################################## 100.0%
######################################################## 77.9%
==> Patching
patching file glib/gunicollate.c
patching file aclocal.m4
patching file config.h.in
patching file configure
patching file configure.ac
patching file gio/gdbusprivate.c
patching file gio/xdgmime/xdgmime.c
patching file gio/gsocket.c
patching file gio/tests/socket.c
==> ./configure --disable-maintainer-mode --disable-dtrace --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.34.2 --localstatedir=/usr/local/var
==> make
==> make install
/usr/local/Cellar/glib/2.34.2: 407 files, 15M, built in 4.5 minutes
==> Installing sshfs
==> Downloading https://github.com/fuse4x/sshfs/tarball/sshfs_2_4_0
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> autoreconf --force --install
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/sshfs/2.4.0
==> make install
==> Caveats
Make sure to follow the directions given by `brew info fuse4x-kext`
before trying to use a FUSE-based filesystem.
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/sshfs/2.4.0: 8 files, 132K, built in 12 seconds
Also check the following instruction before continuing:
$ brew info fuse4x-kext
fuse4x-kext: stable 0.9.2 (bottled)
http://fuse4x.github.com
/usr/local/Cellar/fuse4x-kext/0.9.2 (6 files, 284K) *
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/commits/master/Library/Formula/fuse4x-kext.rb
==> Caveats
In order for FUSE-based filesystems to work, the fuse4x kernel extension
must be installed by the root user:
sudo /bin/cp -rfX /usr/local/Cellar/fuse4x-kext/0.9.2/Library/Extensions/fuse4x.kext /Library/Extensions
sudo chmod +s /Library/Extensions/fuse4x.kext/Support/load_fuse4x
If upgrading from a previous version of Fuse4x, the old kernel extension
will need to be unloaded before performing the steps listed above. First,
check that no FUSE-based filesystems are running:
mount -t fuse4x
Unmount all FUSE filesystems and then unload the kernel extension:
sudo kextunload -b org.fuse4x.kext.fuse4x
Now, you have both Fuse4X and SSHFS installed, so you can mount a remote directory as a volume using:
$ mkdir ~/amazingweb
$ sshfs -p 22 root@antagus2:/var/www/vhosts ~/amazingweb -oauto_cache,reconnect,defer_permissions,noappledouble,volname=amazingweb
Note that this works without needing any password because I use public-key cryptography to authenticate.
You only need to create the directory using mkdir once.
The first parameter (-p 22) means that port 22 should be used (the standard SSH port). The second parameter is the username, hostname and path to the remote filesystem to be mounted. The third parameter is the local path. The forth parameter is the list of options used:
- auto_cache: enable caching based on modification times
- reconnect: reconnect to server
- defer_permissions: certain shares may mount properly but cause permissions denied errors when accessed (an issue caused by the way permissions are translated and interpreted by the Mac OS X Finder). This option works around this problem
- noappledouble: to prevent Mac OS X to write .DS_Store files on the remote file system
- volname: the volume name to be used
You can now access it just like a normal local folder. Of course you have to remount it after restarting the computer.
You can also automate the mounting of the remote folder using an application. To create one:
- Open the AppleScript Editor
- Create a script like the one which follows
- Save it as an application
- You can then start the application to mount your folder instead of going to the terminal
Here the script I use:
set homePath to POSIX path of (path to home folder)
set localPath to homePath & "amazingweb"
set remoteLogin to "root"
set remoteHost to "antagus2"
set remotePath to "/var/www/vhosts"
set volumeName to "amazingweb"
set message to "Unmounting SSHFS volume " & localPath
log message
UnmountSSHFSVolumne(localPath)
set message to "Mounting SSHFS volume " & localPath
log message
MountSSHFSVolumne(localPath, remoteLogin & "@" & remoteHost & ":" & remotePath, volumeName)
on UnmountSSHFSVolumne(aLocalPath)
tell application "Finder"
try
if exists aLocalPath as POSIX file then
set mountedVolumes to every paragraph of (do shell script "mount | awk -F' on ' '{print $2}' | awk -F' \\\\(' '{print $1}'")
if aLocalPath is in mountedVolumes then
do shell script "/sbin/umount " & aLocalPath
set message to "Unmounted SSHFS volume " & aLocalPath
log message
display dialog message buttons {"OK"}
end if
end if
on error errStr number errorNumber
display dialog "Error: " & errStr buttons {"OK"}
end try
end tell
end UnmountSSHFSVolumne
on MountSSHFSVolumne(aLocalPath, aRemotePath, aVolumeName)
tell application "Finder"
try
if exists aLocalPath as POSIX file then
else
do shell script "mkdir " & aLocalPath
end if
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/sshfs -p 22 " & aRemotePath & " " & aLocalPath & " -oauto_cache,reconnect,defer_permissions,noappledouble,volname=" & aVolumeName
set message to "Mounted SSHFS volume " & aLocalPath
log message
display dialog message buttons {"OK"}
on error errStr number errorNumber
display dialog "Error: " & errStr buttons {"OK"}
end try
end tell
end MountSSHFSVolumne
Update: An alternative is to use ExpanDrive it makes it easy to setup a drive and reconnect automaticallyand allows you to use the drive anywhere. It’s technically a whole different beast since it’s actually using SFTP and showing the remote filesystem as a drive, but you won’t really feel the difference. The main reason why I do not use it is that it doesn’t work with authentication key instead of password: my Server doesn’t not allow authentication with password (only with registered keys). Theyhave a 7-days free trial period, so you can just give it a try.
Update: Fuse4x is not maintained anymore and has merged with osxfuse. So now, you should use osxfuse instead of Fuse4x. Osxfuse can also be installed with Homebrew. The package is not yet available in the repository so the following will fail:
$ brew install osxfuse
Error: No available formula for osxfuse
You have to do the following to install it:
$ brew install https://raw.github.com/bfleischer/homebrew/osxfuse/Library/Formula/osxfuse.rb
After that execute the following:
$ sudo /bin/cp -RfX /usr/local/Cellar/osxfuse/2.6.1/Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs /Library/Filesystems
$ sudo chmod +s /Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs/Support/load_osxfusefs
If this fails saying that the file does not exist, it means that building osxfuse failed and the resulting file is missing. To check what happened, execute the following:
$ cd /Library/Caches/Homebrew/osxfuse--git
$ ./build.sh -t homebrew -f /usr/local/Cellar/osxfuse/2.6.1
I got the following messgage:
/usr/bin/xcodebuild: line 2: -version: command not found
OSXFUSEBuildTool() : skip unsupported Xcode version in ‘/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer’.
OSXFUSEBuildTool() failed: no supported version of Xcode found.
It’s due to a trick I used some time ago to build gem native extensions without XCode… All you have to do is restore the original xcrun file, remove the already partially installed osxfuse and reinstall it:
sudo mv /usr/bin/xcrun /usr/bin/xcrun.sav2
sudo mv /usr/bin/xcrun.sav /usr/bin/xcrun
brew remove osxfuse
brew install --reinstall https://raw.github.com/bfleischer/homebrew/osxfuse/Library/Formula/osxfuse.rb
