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To make a remote directory available while working over SSH, mount it on your local machine with SSHFS. You can then browse and edit those remote files at a local mount point. This is a mounted filesystem view—not a file-transfer feature built into an interactive SSH connection—and it uses a separate SSHFS connection alongside your login.
What SSHFS does—and what it does not
SSHFS mounts a remote directory through SSH’s SFTP subsystem. The SSHFS project describes it as a way to mount a remote filesystem using SSH, more precisely SFTP: SSHFS manual. Most SSH servers support and enable SFTP by default, so a separate file-sharing service usually is not needed on the remote host.
Once mounted, the remote directory appears at a path on your local machine. Opening, editing, or saving files there acts on the remote files, subject to the remote account’s permissions. Unmounting removes that local view; it does not leave a downloaded copy behind. For explicit transfers, use commands such as scp or sftp; if your goal is to keep copies synchronized, a synchronization tool may fit better.
Mount a remote directory manually
You need SSHFS on the local machine, working SSH access to the server, an available local directory to use as the mount point, and SFTP enabled on the server. The SSHFS command form is sshfs [user@]host:[dir] mountpoint [options].
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Create a mount-point directory if you do not already have one:
mkdir -p ~/mounts/myserver. -
Mount the remote directory:
sshfs myserver:/home/admin ~/mounts/myserver. Replacemyserverwith a hostname or SSH alias and adjust the remote and local paths. -
Work with the remote files under
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When finished, unmount the directory. On Linux systems using FUSE, the command is commonly
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Mount automatically when you start an SSH login
Al Williams’s 2020 Hackaday example uses a shell wrapper called sshmount to check for ~/remote/<host>, mount the host’s home directory there if it is not already mounted, and then start an interactive SSH login. It expects convenient host names—typically aliases in ~/.ssh/config—and mount-point directories prepared under ~/remote.
In outline, the wrapper checks whether the path exists and whether it is already mounted. If the directory is missing, it reports that and proceeds to SSH; if present but not mounted, it runs sshfs -o reconnect <host>: ~/remote/<host>, then invokes ssh <host>. Calling the same script through an sshunmount link runs fusermount -u on the matching path. This is an example workflow, not a drop-in script guaranteed to fit every shell, distribution, or server configuration; adapt and test it for your setup. The original example is described in Hackaday’s Linux Fu: Simple SSH File Sharing.
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The example also suggests SSH connection sharing with settings such as ControlMaster auto and ControlPath in ~/.ssh/config, and using key-based login. These are optional configuration choices, not SSHFS requirements. The mount and the interactive login are still distinct connections; connection sharing can reduce repeated authentication or setup overhead when configured appropriately.
Make a local directory reachable from the remote host
SSH remote port forwarding can let the remote machine connect back to an SSH server on your local computer through the established SSH tunnel. This requires an SSH server running locally, remote forwarding permitted by the SSH configuration, and a remote-side port that is not already in use.
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From your local machine, start the login with a remote forward, adapting the host and port as needed:
sshmount MyServer -R 5555:localhost:22. Here, port5555listens on the remote side and forwards through the tunnel to port22on the local machine.Rank #4
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In the remote session, mount the local directory through that forwarded port:
sshfs -p 5555 localhost:/home/me ~/local. Change/home/meto a directory on the local machine and~/localto a mount point on the remote host. -
Unmount the remote-side SSHFS mount when finished. Avoid casually mounting directories in both directions: filesystem-wide scanners can traverse the resulting views, and the original example notes that reliably disconnecting the reverse share when the final session exits is not straightforward.
Permissions, lifecycle, and choosing the right method
SSHFS operations use the credentials and remote permissions of the account that mounted the filesystem. The SSHFS manual says local permission checking is disabled by default; adding -o default_permissions enables local permission checks. That option does not grant additional permissions on the remote server.
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Use SSHFS when you want to browse or work with a remote directory as part of your local filesystem. Use scp or sftp when you want to run an explicit transfer, and choose synchronization software when maintaining copies is the goal. The 2020 article does not establish performance rankings among these approaches.
SSHFS project information can change: the project’s releases page lists version 3.7.6, dated May 30, 2026, and notes a new maintainer and security fixes. Check the SSHFS releases and your distribution’s documentation for current installation and maintenance details rather than relying on instructions for a particular Linux distribution here.
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