I wanted to create a secure drop box to my website and decided to try sshfs.

I had MacFuse already installed from using NTFS-3G.

• Download and install sshfs.
• Double click the gz file you downloaded to extract and rename it to sshfs.
• Move the sshfs application to /usr/local/bin/
  • Go to Finder, Go, Go to folder…
  • type in:  /usr/local/bin/
  • Drag the sshfs app to the folder
  • Finder will ask you to authenticate, so type in your password
• Now you need to change the permissions on the sshfs file so it is executable.
  • Launch Terminal
  • cd /usr/local/bin/
  • ls -al to see files and permissions
  • To change the permissions:  chmod 755 sshfs
  • To change the owner and group:  sudo chown root:wheel sshfs

Now you can use sshfs to mount your remote shares.  I created a script to initiate the mount, but obviously this can be used at the command line. For usage options type:  sshfs -h

Here is my script:

umount /Volumes/Domain.com

rmdir /Volumes/Domain.com

mkdir /Volumes/Domain.com

sshfs [email protected]:path/uploads/ /Volumes/Domain.com/ -o auto_cache -o local -o volname=Domain.com

Here is what happens:

• unmount anything that may exist in /Volume/Domain.com
• delete any Domain.com folder that exists in /Volumes
• create /Volumes/Domain.com to mount the remote file system into
• finally mount the remote file system

Caveat:  sshfs does NOT do file locking, therefor it would NOT be good to use in a multi-user environment.  You can, but you will more than likely run into problems.