Re: [sshfs] Deploying SSHFS on workstations instead of NFS

[Miklos S. <mi...@sz...>]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2009, Aleksandr Levchuk wrote:
> I'm trying deploy SSHFS to all workstations in our Bioinformatics lab.
> 
> I would like to keep NFS on the computing cluster, but would like to
> avoid exporting through NFS to my Ubuntu workstations. Instead I am
> looking into having them on SSHFS.
> 
> I succeeded launching a desktop session in a remote sshfs home
> directory. By "succeeded" I mean, only 1 error dialog from when the
> user logins-in to the point when the Ubuntu is loaded fully.
> 
> The trick was to:
>   sshfs -o allow_other ... /home/username
> 
> But issues arise once you start using the workstation.
> 
> There are 3 noticeable issues:
> 
> 1. Soon after entering the password I see the error dialog box saying
> that /home/alevchuk/.ICEauthority could not be processed.

This is because the SFTP protocol lacks support for hard linking.  See
below.

> 
> 2. I was expecting to be able to edit the properties of my GNOME PANEL
> launcher icons.
> But, instead I got
>   "Failed to rename file
> '/home/alevchuk/.gnome2/panel2.d/default/launchers/firefox2.desktop.IU4QOU'

This is because SFTP defines its rename operation to be
"non-replacing".  There's a workaround "-oworkarounds=rename" or later
OpenSSH sftp-servers contain a POSIX rename extension.

> 
> 3. The changes that I could make to the configuration of my desktop
> were gone after I logged out and logged back in.

Probably the same as 2.

For the hard link problem I've posted patches to the OpenSSH mailing
list(*), and it seems these will be integrated into a future release.
I'll also post the respective patches to SSHFS on this list in a
minute.

Thanks,
Miklos

(*) http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.file-systems.fuse.sshfs/930