Best way to mount remote folder

Question

I have two RasberryPi running debian wheezy and I would like to mount a folder from computer A on computer B.

What is the best (as in most efficient) way to do this?

I can do it via SMB, but that is for windows, I think there must be a better way to share across linux.

Answer 1

You can use plenty of things, among which, popular options are:

• NFS
• Samba / CIFS
• SSHFS

By ease-of-setup I think they would have to be put in this order (top: easiest)

SSHFS

Through FUSE, you can mount remote filesystems via ssh. I won't cover how, as Cristopher has already very well explained that. Just note that, in order to mount the file automatically it will need a bit more of work.

Samba

It will allow you to use Windows and Unix machines to access the remote folder. If it's not a big deal for you, then you won't probably benefit from it. However, it's easy to automount it on init (just input the apropriate values at /etc/fstab, including username=<your-samba-username>,password=<your-samba-password> in the options column.

NFS

It will let you authenticate just via IP (no usernames thing = faster, only of use inside your non-hostile LAN) or via Kerberos Tickets (too painful for just two Raspberries; but useful in corporate environments).

As it has kernel mode support, it will run faster than sshfs. Besides, as there's no encryption performed it will have a better throughput, and in the case of the tiny Raspberry ARM, it may make a difference.

Besides, it's not so painful to setup simply you trust your network. You have automount support in /etc/fstab too, and you don't have to put sensitive data (such as usernames or passwords), and if you have your usernames syncrhronized (same /etc/passwd and /etc/group files) you can use the usual POSIX permissions toolset (chown, chgrp and chmod).

Answer 2

In linux, you would choose for NFS (also check out the article on archwiki about it which may have applicable information for your distribution aswell). It has more advanced features then samba. If you need to lock (i.e. concurrent acces) files you should look into lockd aswell because nfs is stateless. However it is harder to configure than smb. I would suggest trying both samba and nfs to see which one suits your needs.

Answer 3

SSHFS is wonderful; it can mount remote directories in a local directory.

You could install ssh on both sides:

# apt-get install ssh

On the client side, or both sides if desired, install sshfs and fuse utilities:

# apt-get install fuse-utils sshfs

Without reboot, load the kernel module:

# modprobe fuse

Create a mount point for the remote file system:

# mkdir /mnt/directory-name
# chown your-user:group /mnt/directory-name/

Add your username to the fuse group:

# adduser [your-user] fuse

My Debian creates /dev/fuse with 0600 permissions, so let the fuse group use the device:

# chmod 0660 /dev/fuse

Your user account may need to log out and in again to become a member of the fuse group. Then as the regular user...

$ sshfs remote-username@remote-server-name: /mnt/directory-name/

To mount a directory other than home, specify it after the colon:

$ sshfs remote-username@remote-server-name:/remote/directory /mnt/directory-name

Unmount:

fusermount -u /mnt/directory-name

The commands above use # to indicate that it was done as the root user, and the $ indicates that it was done as a regular user.

If you have a Windows machine, it too can use SSHFS with win-sshfs. This software will "map a drive" with SSHFS, so that you can have a Windows drive letter that contains the remote directory.