• sshautofs
  • Prerequisites
  • Usage
  • Example

sshautofs

fuse automount sshfs filesystems
Access any remote server filesystems through a <hostname> directory
Remember OGFS ?

• automatic access to servers filesystems through fuse-sshfs when accessing <mountpoint>/<server>
  • transparently use sshfs to mount sshfs <server>:/ <mountpoint>-ssh/<server>
  • creates symlink <mountpoint>/<server> -> <mountpoint>-ssh/<server> to access
  • automatic unmount after timeout
• special cmd directory allow specific remote commands on servers

Prerequisites

• fuse sshfs
• fuse3

Usage

$ ./sshautofs
Usage: ./sshautofs [options] <mountpoint>
Example: ./sshautofs ~/mnt

Options:
  -F string
        ssh config file to use
  -cmd value
        Remote commands to expose in /cmd/<host>/<cmd> (e.g. -cmd ps='/bin/ps -ef' -cmd ...)
  -foreground
        Run in foreground (do not daemonize)
  -o string
        Additional sshfs options (e.g. -o reconnect,ro)
  -remote_path string
        Remote path to mount through sshfs (default "/")
  -timeout duration
        Timeout before unmounting unused sshfs mounts (e.g. 30s) (default 10m0s)

Example

$ sshautofs -cmd ps='/bin/ps -ef' ~/servers
$ cd ~/servers/myhost
$ ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root          7 May  1  2023 bin -> usr/bin
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       4096 Apr  8  2024 bin.usr-is-merged
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       4096 Apr 18  2022 boot
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       3860 Jul 11 08:38 dev
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root      12288 Jul 12 07:43 etc
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       4096 May  8 10:53 home
-rwxrwxrwx. 1 root root    2724480 Jun  9 20:32 init
...
$ tail ~/servers/myhost/var/log/messages
Jul 26 14:55:58 myhost systemd...
...
$ cat ~/servers/cmd/myhost/ps
UID          PID    PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root           1       0  0 Jul09 ?        00:00:06 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd --switched-root --system --deserialize 18
root           2       0  0 Jul09 ?        00:00:00 [kthreadd]
...
$ grep chronyd ~/servers/cmd/myhost/ps
chrony       955       1  0 08:39 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/chronyd

• Automatically mounts sshfs myhost:/ ~/servers-ssh/myhost accessible through ~/servers/myhost symlink
• the mount is expiring by default after 10min, the sshfs will be unmounted after 10min without access.
• In the special cmd directory, a cat ~/servers/cmd/myhost/ps executes ssh myhost 'ps -ef' and display output