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# Sftpman

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You can use sftpman (an SSHFS helper) to mount a remote system - accessible via SSH - to a local folder.

sftpman offers both a command-line tool (sftpman) and an iced-based frontend (sftpman-iced, see screenshot), each packaged separately.

With sftpman, you first setup (define) your remote filesystems and then you mount/unmount them easily (with one command or click).

Note: In order to use sftpman or its GUI sftpman-iced, you will first need to have a working SSHFS setup.

## Installation

There are 2 packages you may wish to install.

- sftpmanAUR - provides the command-line application sftpman and is also used internally (as a library) by the GUI frontend.

- sftpman-icedAUR - provides the sftpman-iced application, an iced-based GUI frontend to sftpman.

## Defining filesystems

Each filesystem managed by sftpman needs to have a unique name/id which will be used when managing the system and also in its mount path. A system with an id of my-machine will be mounted locally to /mnt/sshfs/my-machine.

Authentication with the remote filesystem during mounting can be performed using passwords, SSH keys or by delegating it to an authentication-agent.

To define a new remote filesystem with password-based authentication using the command-line tool, do:

    $ sftpman create \
    --id "my-machine" \
    --host "HOSTNAME_OR_IP" \
    --user "USERNAME" \
    --auth_type=password \
    --remote_path "/REMOTE_PATH"

Or the equivalent in case you want to authenticate with SSH Keys (recommended):

    $ sftpman create \
    --id "my-machine" \
    --host "HOSTNAME_OR_IP" \
    --user "USERNAME" \
    --auth_type=publickey \
    --ssh_key "/PATH/TO/PRIVATE_KEY" \
    --mount_point "/REMOTE_PATH"

The above setup is the minimum for defining a new filesystem that sftpman can mount. Depending on your environment, you may need to configure additional options (like --port, which defaults to 22). To see a full list of available options do:

    $ sftpman create --help

You can also use the GUI application to define new filesystems more easily.

### Mounting/Unmounting

Once you have defined several filesystems, you can mount them by using their ids.

To mount:

    $ sftpman mount my-machine

which mounts the filesystem to /mnt/sshfs/my-machine

To unmount:

    $ sftpman umount my-machine

Note: In order for the GUI application to be able to ask you for a password when mounting, you will need to install some form of an ssh askpass tool. See SSH keys#x11-ssh-askpass.

### Removing defined filesystems

To remove a defined filesystem from sftpman's list do:

    $ sftpman rm machine-id

### Learning more

To see a list of more commands and options that sftpman supports, consult the help:

    $ sftpman help

## Troubleshooting

sftpman can perform some basic checks on the environment, which may catch some potential problems:

    $ sftpman preflight_check

If the GUI application does not ask you for a password while mounting (when using password-based authentication or for password-protected ssh keys), you will need to install an ssh askpass tool, see #Mounting/Unmounting.

Note: If mounting a filesystem fails, sftpman will give you the full sshfs command and its output. You can then use that command and run it manually (possibly after adding some more debug options to it, so you would see some more output).

When doing authentication using keys, start small and make sure SSH-ing actually works by trying it manually, before trying to use sshfs and a helper around sshfs (like sftpman). Some common problems can be solved by consulting Using SSH Keys#Troubleshooting.

Also see SSHFS#Troubleshooting.

Category:

- Secure Shell