Mounting a server into the Finder on Apple OS X.11 via SSH

macos mac ssh mount

7,290

Solution 1

Ok, I got this working with open source software on my mac, currently running OS X El Capitan 10.11.2. I'm including my own solution here for posterity. Feel free to update or comment if you have better alternatives.

Here are the steps I followed, and I'm not entirely certain all of them are necessary, nonetheless, these are all of the software packages I installed:

Install OSXFUSE (v2.8.3) and SSHFS (v2.5.0). I also selected the "MacFUSE compatibility layer" option during the installation of OSXFUSE because I believe that removes existing (non-functional) builds of MacFUSE from your computer.
Install XQuartz (v2.7.8). I'm not certain this is necessary, but in the past it proved critical for proper functioning of MacFusion in the next step.
Install MacFusion (v2.0.4). This software is deprecated, but once the other pieces of software are installed (steps 1 and 2), it works amazingly well and mounts your remote server to your specified mount point (I like to specify my desktop (at /Users/megatron/Desktop/<mounted-server-name>).

Solution 2

Mountain Duck is in beta at the moment and does exactly this.

7,290

Megatron

BY DAY: Mining energon, battling Autobots, planning triumphant return to Cybertron. FOR FUN: r analyses of any publicly available data, python for ML, git for all of the above "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." - Herbert Stein's Law "The perfect is the enemy of the good." "A camel is a horse designed by committee." "All models are wrong, but some are useful." - George Box "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything." "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." - Orson Welles "If you're explaining, you're losing." "Excessive civility without adequate candor means that everyone feels good but not much is really being discussed. Candor is more proactive." - Todd Dewett "Five minutes of extra care saves an hour" "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Megatron over 1 year

In the past, I have mounted remote servers over SSH on my Apple computer using MacFUSE and a program that interfaces with it called MacFusion. These appear to be deprecated and do not work with the current version of Apple's OS X.11 El Capitan operating system.

Is there a way to mount remote servers using SSH on an Apple computer running OS X.11 using a graphical tool like MacFusion?
Megatron over 8 years

Are you familiar with an open source alternative?
Yusuke Higuchi over 8 years

Cyberduck (GUI) and duck.sh (shell) are both open source, but I don't believe either use Finder.