Mounting Remote Folders

When working with data, you might need to access files and folders stored on remote machines or servers. Mounting remote folders allows you to access the data as if it were stored locally. This guide will show you how to mount remote folders using different protocols.

SMB

To mount a remote drive using the SMB protocol, you need to install the cifs-utils package. You can install it using the following command:

sudo apt install cifs-utils

Then, you can add the following line to your /etc/fstab file to mount the remote drive on boot:

//SERVER/path /mnt/local_smb cifs username=USER,password=PASSWORD,iocharset=utf8,vers=3.0,file_mode=0666,dir_mode=0777 0 0

Where the SERVER is the IP address or hostname of the remote server, path is the path to the shared folder, USER and PASSWORD are the credentials to access the shared folder, and /mnt/local_smb is the local mount point.

Then, you can mount the remote drive by running:

sudo mkdir /mnt/local_smb
sudo mount /mnt/local_smb
sudo ls /mnt/local_smb

This will mount the remote drive on your local machine, and you can access the data in the shared folder.

Security Risk

In the example above, we set file_mode and dir_mode to 0666 and 0777, which means giving read and write permissions to everyone. This is only for convenience and might not be secure. You should adjust the permissions according to your needs and security requirements.

Wondering how to host a shared SMB folder?

Check out our guide on Setting Up an SMB Share to learn how to host a shared folder on AnduinOS!

NFS

To mount a remote drive using the NFS protocol, you need to install the nfs-common package. You can install it using the following command:

sudo apt install nfs-common

Then, you can add the following line to your /etc/fstab file to mount the remote drive on boot:

SERVER:/path /mnt/local_nfs nfs defaults 0 0

Where SERVER is the IP address or hostname of the NFS server, and path is the path to the shared folder. /mnt/local_nfs is the local mount point.

To mount the remote drive, run:

sudo mkdir /mnt/local_nfs
sudo mount /mnt/local_nfs
sudo ls /mnt/local_nfs

This will mount the NFS shared folder on your local machine, allowing you to access its contents.

WebDAV

To mount a remote drive using the WebDAV protocol, you need to install the davfs2 package. You can install it using the following command:

sudo apt install davfs2

Then, you can add the following line to your /etc/fstab file to mount the remote drive on boot:

https://SERVER/path /mnt/local_webdav davfs rw,user,uid=USER,gid=GROUP 0 0

Where SERVER is the hostname of the WebDAV server, path is the path to the shared folder, /mnt/local_webdav is the local mount point, and USER and GROUP represent the desired ownership.

To mount the remote drive, run:

sudo mkdir /mnt/local_webdav
sudo mount /mnt/local_webdav
sudo ls /mnt/local_webdav

This will mount the WebDAV folder, allowing you to interact with it as a local drive.

SSHFS

To mount a remote drive using SSHFS, you need to install the sshfs package. You can install it using the following command:

sudo apt install sshfs

Then, you can mount the remote directory with the following command:

sshfs USER@SERVER:/path /mnt/local_sshfs

Where USER is your SSH username, SERVER is the IP address or hostname of the remote server, and path is the directory you want to mount. /mnt/local_sshfs is the local mount point.

To make the mount persistent, you can add the following line to your /etc/fstab file:

USER@SERVER:/path /mnt/local_sshfs fuse.sshfs defaults 0 0

To mount the drive manually, run:

sudo mkdir /mnt/local_sshfs
sudo mount /mnt/local_sshfs
sudo ls /mnt/local_sshfs

FTP

To mount a remote drive using FTP, you can use curlftpfs. First, install it using:

sudo apt install curlftpfs

Then, mount the remote directory with the following command:

curlftpfs ftp://USER:PASSWORD@SERVER/path /mnt/local_ftp

Where USER and PASSWORD are the FTP credentials, SERVER is the hostname or IP of the FTP server, and path is the folder to mount. /mnt/local_ftp is the local mount point.

To make the mount persistent, you can add the following line to your /etc/fstab file:

curlftpfs#ftp://USER:PASSWORD@SERVER/path /mnt/local_ftp fuse rw,uid=USER,gid=GROUP 0 0

To mount the drive manually, run:

sudo mkdir /mnt/local_ftp
sudo mount /mnt/local_ftp
sudo ls /mnt/local_ftp

This will allow you to access the FTP server as a local drive.