10.4: A detailed look at MacFUSE and the SSH file system

Sep 11, '07 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: gruffell

Have you ever been been at work or somewhere else and wished you could access the files on your home computer remotely and safely? (Or maybe the other way around?) I've just helped someone set up a remote connection through a router to their work machine so they can access the files from home. (Of course this only will work if it's your computer and you have authorization to modify the router settings and remotely access the computer.)

Google provides MacFUSE (File System in User Space) that provides this ability via a secure (SSH) connection, and it's fairly easy to do. Basically, with MacFUSE installed, it's like having the remote computer's hard drive mounted on your desktop (remember it'll be a little slow via the internet), but you can do anything on the remote machine that you need to (providing you have the related applications on the local machine to access the remote files). The real advantage here is it's a much more secure method and passwords do not get sent in the clear.

For the setup I just did, the hardest part was getting the LinkSys router to set a static IP address for the remote machine, which is necessary for this project. I ended up doing a firmware upgrade to the router (definitely NOT for the faint-of-heart) but the resulting router system was far superior to the standard Linksys software -- but that's a whole other subject.

[robg adds: What follows is a more detailed version of this hint, and it contains a bit of updated information. If you found the original hint detailed enough, then you'll probably find this one redundant.]

If you are looking for more detail on the FUSE project, check out the project's Google Code page. There you'll find links for downloads, and a Wiki for help as well as a Google video talk about the project. One thing that stumped me for a bit was making the initial first connection -- you have to do the first connection via Terminal to get a key for that machine, but from then on it's very straight forward.

Getting Started:

If you don't have 10.4 or later, don't read any further.

Setting Up the machine to share:

Setting up the remote machine (only needs to be done once): You are now ready to use the graphical interface, so quit Terminal. If the IP address of the machine you are trying to access changes, you will need to redo the above steps using the new IP address.

Using MacFuse: You can now access the remote files -- when you are done, remember to eject the drive and quit the SSHFS app.

What else can MacFuse do?

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