sshfs always asking for password in fstab?

Question

I'm trying to enter an sshfs mount in /etc/fstab with the following line:

sshfs#oli@192.168.0.2:/media/usb0 /media/ExtHD fuse     defaults,nonempty,allow_other 0 0

So that this volume is mounted at boot. After booting up, nothing happens, but when I use the command sudo mount -a, I am always prompted for the password. I have set up SSH Keys and transferred them over to the computer at 192.168.0.2, and can log in to regular ssh with no pasword. How can I stop fuse from asking for my password so that the volume can be automatically mounted at boot time?

If it helps at all, I am trying to connect to a home server running Debian from a laptop running Arch Linux. Thanks

Answer 1

If you want it to boot without a password, you'll need to create a public/private ssh keys without password. It's not recommendend, but you can at least protect those files with a chmod 400 as root user.

After that, as usual, you'll need to copy the public key on the mount point :

ssh-copy-id -i my_new_key.pub oli@192.168.0.2

And you'll need to tell sshfs to use this key.

oli@192.168.0.2:/media/usb0 /media/ExtHD fuse     defaults,nonempty,allow_other,SSHOPT='IdentityFile /path/to/private/key' 0 0

Answer 2

Key-based authentication can only work if the ssh process can find your key. You presumably have your key in your home directory; but you've never told sshfs where to look for a key. At boot time, it would be root mounting all filesystems, therefore the key must be either in /root/.ssh or referenced in /root/.ssh/config.

I recommend mounting the filesystem after you've logged in, and as your own user. Put this in a script that's executed when you log in:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/name_of_key.id_rsa
sshfs homeserver:/media/usb0 ~/exthd

Put an alias called homeserver in your ~/.ssh/config:

Host homeserver
HostName 192.168.0.2
User oli