SSH functionality with RackSpace Cloud Sites via SSHFS

Working with RackSpace Clouds Sites has its advantages. One drawback though, is the lack of SSH access to you sites. This makes the routine advantages of SSH inaccessible. There is a work-around though. Enter sshfs. SSHFS is a way to mount a file system over SSH. The client interacts with the remote file system via the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) Once mounted you can use ssfs for the following: How to “Un-Mount” (umount) a Remote SSHFS Drive on Mac OS 10.9

If you are having trouble un-mounting your remote connection read this:

tar     gzip     gunzip     zip     unzip     chmod

Here is how SSHFS works

Make directory on your local computer that will be the “window” into the remote directory.

mkdir remote_home

Type this sshfs command from the terminal (command line).

sshfs me@www.myhost.com:/home/me/ remote_home

Take a look at the window directory you created.

ls -l remote_home/

Here is how to unmount the remote directory:

umount remote_home

How to install sshfs on a mac with homebrew

This article deals with installing sshfs on a Mac OS 10.X. If you wish to install sshfs on a different system I recommend you check out RackSpace’s link here.

Mac Installation Notes

You can use homebrew to install SSHFS.

brew doctor
brew update 
brew install sshfs 

How to fix the “the OSXFUSE file system is not available” error

You may get an the error “the OSXFUSE file system is not available”. If you get the error, the existing OSXFUSE file system is not playing nice with SSHFS. In that case try this:

brew info sshfs 

This sometimes yields additional information. In my case it told me to install a new version of the FUSE kernel and provided the syntax for the terminal commands.

# remove kernel extension:
sudo kextunload -b com.github.osxfuse.filesystems.osxfusefs
 
# Use new kernel extension:
sudo /bin/cp -RfX 
/usr/local/Cellar/osxfuse/2.6.2/Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs /Library/Filesystems
sudo chmod +s 
  /Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs/Support/load_osxfusefs 

After this, rssfs worked great.