Share my DVD drive with my Mac Mini over LAN

Question

I've got a Mac Mini that doesn't have a DVD drive. Apple says you can share a DVD drive over the network, but their "magical" approach only works with Windows and other Macs.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777?viewlocale=en_US

Can I get Remote Disc to work with my Ubuntu laptop or get this functionality with another method?

I don't mind setting up a network share somehow (NFS or similar) but it has got to be easy to turn on and off, with some script I'd imagine. I use my laptop in public spaces very often and I don't want others picking up my open DVD drive while I use public wifi.

On the Mac side, I'd want the DVD to show up in Finder. I don't mind running a script here either to mount/unmount the drive.

Ultimately, the solution has to be frictionless. It should work in any LAN environment. You can assume DHCP is on and the IP addresses for both computers will change once in a while. I also alternate between wifi and wired depending on where my laptop happens to be in the house.

Your thoughts are appreciated!

Solution

You could use sshfs to mount the directory on your Mac.

On the Ubuntu-Host you need to have the openssh-server installed:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

On the Mac, install Fuse for OS X and MacFusion. Be sure to install the MacFUSE compatibility layer. MacFusion includes sshfs. The sshfs binary can be added to the PATH using a symlink:

sudo ln -s /Applications/Macfusion.app/Contents/PlugIns/sshfs.mfplugin/Contents/MacOS/sshfs /usr/local/bin/sshfs

Now, that you have openssh-server on your ubuntu host and MacFusion on the Mac, you can do the following (replace /media/mountdir by the actual mount location of the cd drive on the host) on the Mac:

mkdir /media/cdromdrive
sshfs Benutzername@ubuntuhost:/media/mountdir /media/cdromdrive

after that you should be able to access the contents on the cd from the directory (mount point) /media/cdromdrive

Comments

[user3054705]

Great! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I've edited your post to include instructions on how I installed sshfs for Mac. I have my drive mounted successfully, but I have to replace ubuntuhost with my IP address. This is not so desirable since my IP addresses changes periodically. Any way of using around this? DNS?

[Michael K]

If your computer has a domain name assigned by a (local) DNS-Server , this is possible. If you have a local network you can as well assign a local static IP address to the ubuntu host computer, which is not in the range the DHCP server assigns.

[user3054705]

Awesomeness. I ended up assigning a static DHCP rule in my router and using the /etc/hosts file. Thanks!