Using SSHFS on a Mac with a password-protected private key

Question

Hey guys, I have a remote fileserver that I use to host my music/movies. I have a laptop and desktop, and wanted to share my files between the two, without the files actually being on either machine, so I employed an old dying laptop to host an SSH server, plugged into my external drive.

I have sshd configured on the server to accept connections using my password-protected private key, and it works great using applications like Cyberduck. The problem is, I want to be able to open iTunes and point it to my remote library. (Obviously iTunes would only work while the share is mounted.) Similarly, if I want to watch a movie, I don't want to have to copy it to my desktop, wait for the transfer to finish, then start watching. I want to double-click the file, and have it stream to my laptop as if it were a local file.

The problem is, I tried installing sshfs from this site:

sshfs for Mac OS X

But I can't figure out how to provide a private key, let alone a password-protected one. I'm new to SSH server configuration, so if I'm leaving out any crucial information, let me know.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You might first want to use the standard sshfs for OS X which is included with MacFuse here. Using that, it supports reading the $HOME/.ssh/config and ssh keys just like the standard command line ssh client. Try getting a connection working with ssh client and then use the same username and host name for the sshfs mount. I use exactly this setup with iTunes for accessing my music library remotely. However, if the machines involved are both OS X systems and on the same network (so that Bonjour discovery works), current versions of iTunes allow automatic sharing of music libraries, as long as you are willing to keep iTunes running on both. See iTunes -> Preferences -> Sharing.