How to Use Sshfs on OpenBSD | Hacker News Reader

How to Use Sshfs on OpenBSD

dataswamp.org

61 pointszdw27 comments

Since this is on frontage, a gentle reminder, dear reader, sshfs is looking for maintainers, and currently does not have any.

https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs

Yea, I'm a heavy user of sshfs and am nervous about this.

You can maintain it, and get the associated glory and fame!

(it honestly seems relatively finished, so I don't think there's all that much work, either.)

I did consider that. But then a cursory look at the open issues proved that I don’t have the requisite knowledge, and resources (various platforms that it supports)

Then there is Rclone which can do sshfs alike mounts

Though from quick skim of https://rclone.org/sftp/ it seems you have to configure each remote. With sshfs you don't need to do any configuration apart from ~/.ssh.

Until you need to write, at which point you run into a litany of quirks that stem from the fact that rclone is designed to work with fancy remote kv-stores and has no idea how to partial-update.

I’m a little ambivalent about sshfs. It would be sad to see it die out. On the other hand I’ve only ever seen it misused.

misused in which ways?

Production systems with sshfs mounts criss-crossing servers, rather than having proper centralised fileserver.

It’s not the fault of sshfs, but it attracts people who just creates the messy systems.

Any more modern alternatives than sshfs that people should be looking into using?

Tailscale + NFS or Tailscale + SMB

SSHFS is fun but there are easier ways to accomplish the same thing.

How is sshfs not easy? It's the simplest form of a remote mount.

Those combinations are far more complicated than using the same transport and firewall rules that you've already configured.

Its not simpler when you consider that ssh needs an open port on your router.

Really? How do you manage those servers in the first place?

If i had the necessary skills i would for sure help this project, i have used it more times than i can count :/

The situation is much worse than I had imagined; the parent project, libfuse, is also in need of a maintainer.

https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse

Great info. But this best belongs in a man page (or some other relevant document) in sysutils/sshfs-fuse, considering OpenBSD’s reputation for high quality documentation.

I don't think that reputation applies to stuff from the ports tree, which is by definition not OpenBSD.

Not really, but several ports do have OpenBSD-specific documentation added by the port maintainer. I agree that it would be nice to put this information in the port.

SSHFS is next level in terms of networking. We've had network drives forever, but having a guarantee it will act like a normal filesystem makes it so much smoother to work with.

That said, in my book, sync thing is an even better version for synced file systems. Mostly because you can't lose connection or need to setup the connection each time.

Those are different solutions. You don't sync files locally.

I love this util and recommend it to ppl at work. I don't have the skills to maintain it but would contribute $.

I also wrote a cautionary cybersecurity tale on … SSHFP.

Ooop, that’s SSHFS.

My bad.

I believe you're talking about "SSHFP," a DNS RR that contains SSH fingerprints.

This article is discussing "SSHFS," a userspace filesystem driver that uses SSH/SFTP as a transport to expose remote files locally.

I blame my very own brain-fart.

Please post your tale of SSHFP in a new thread, sounds interesting.

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