Error mounting dir from ext4 file system

Question

I am trying to mount a directory on a ext4 type file system onto another linux box. Both boxes are on the same network

[root@localhost]# mount -o rw x.y.z.w:/home/lab /devbox
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on x.y.z.w:/home/lab, missing codepage or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so


[root@localhost]# mount -o ro,noload x.y.z.w:/home/lab /devbox
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on x.y.z.w:/home/lab, missing codepage or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so


[root@localhost]# mount -o ro,noload -t ext4 x.y.z.w:/home/lab /devbox
mount: special device x.y.z.w:/home/lab does not exist

The dir /home/lab exists on x.y.z.w. Not sure what i am missing here

Answer 1

You need to use some kind of network file system to remotely mount a specific directory. You can't just directly mount a remote directory without any additional software.

1. If you already have ssh running and an account on your remote server use sshfs
   sshfs user@host:/path/to/remote/directory /local/directory
2. If you already do some network sharing for windows clients just mount the directory via cifs
   mount -t cifs //server-name/share-name /mnt/cifs
3. Use NFS to mount the remote directory. You will have to install additional software for rpc on the client and the server and explicitly configure it to export the device.
   mount -t nfs -o rw host:/remote/directory /local/directory

There are other options as well but i think the quickest and simplest solution is just to use sshfs.