Re: Using Files Without Mounting A Share From Another System

[Rob Owens <rowens@ptd.net>]

On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 01:03:00PM -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> I now know I can use smbclient to read files on an SMB share without having to mount it, but I need to do more than that.
> 
> I want to be able to access either Java classes or an executable on a shared volume on a server without having to mount the volume on the local system. (There are a couple reasons for not wanting to mount.)  I know on Windows I can list the files on an SMB share on another system and access them using SMB/CIFS by just specifying the volume properly on the command line.  I want to do something like that on Linux, but do more than just listing the files or copying them to the local computer.
> 
> I need a way, on Linux, to access files on a network share, which could be SMB or NFS (or something else) without mounting the volume.  For example, if I'm on System A and I have an executable on System B, and it's on a network share on System B, is there any way to run that executable without mounting that share as a volume on System A?
> 
Here's a possible workaround.  It involves mounting, but as a regular
user.

I'd use sshfs.  The remote server needs to have an ssh server running.
Then you can run this:

sshfs remoteserver:/some/path localdir

Then you can ls localdir, or operate on any of the files there.

If you use public key authentication and ssh-add, you can do this
without needing to enter a password.

I've never used this to access a non-linux machine, but in theory it
should work on anything that is running an ssh server.

-Rob