In many cases it can become cumbersome to transfer files to and from a droplet. Imagine a development usage scenario where you are coding apps remotely and find yourself uploading a script repeatedly to your virtual server to test. This can become quite a hassle in a very short period of time. Luckily there is a way to mount your VPS file system to your local computer so you can make changes on the fly and treat your droplet as local storage. In this article, we will show you how to do exactly that.
Configure ssh key-based authentication
Generate key pair on the local host with your username.
$ cd /home/yourprofile/.ssh
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
Accept all sugestions with enter key.
Copy public key to the remote host:
$ ssh-copy-id -i .ssh/id_rsa.pub user@host
Install sshfs
$ sudo apt install sshfs
Mount remote directory
$ mkdir /home/yourUserName/remotefoldername
$ chmod 777 /home/yourUserName/remotefoldername
$ sshfs user@host:/remote_directory /local_directory -o "ProxyCommand=nc -X connect -x 10.20.6.29:3128 %h %p"
[warning]
Don't try to add remote fs to /etc/fstab
Or don't try to mount shares via /etc/rc.local .
In both cases it won't work as the network is not available when init reads /etc/fstab.
$ sudo apt install autofs
[quote]
Edit /etc/auto.master
Comment out the following lines
[quote]
#+/etc/auto.master.d
#+/etc/auto.master
Add a new line
[quote]
/- /etc/auto.sshfs --timeout=30
Save and quit
[quote]
Edit /etc/auto.sshfs
Add a new line
/local_directory -fstype=fuse,allow_other,IdentityFile=/local_private_key :sshfs\#user@remote_host\:/remote_directory
Remote user name is obligatory.
Save and quit
Start autofs in debug mode
$ sudo service autofs stop
$ sudo automount -vf
Observe logs of the remote ssh server
$ ssh user@remote_server
$ sudo tailf /var/log/secure
Check content of the local directory
You should see contents of the remote directory
Start autofs in normal mode
Stop AutoFS running in debug mode with CTRL-C .
Start AutoFS in normal mode
$ sudo service autofs start