====== How to use SSHFS to mount anything ======

SSHFS ("SSH File System") is a system to let you mount **anything** on **any machine** that you can SSH to.  To use it on Ubuntu:

  $ sudo apt-get install sshfs
  $ sudo adduser <your_userid> fuse

You can install it on RHEL5/CentOS5 [[http://www.sdmachelp.com/fuse/fuse-sshfs.html|these directions]].  You don't even have to be root to use it (provided you are in the 'fuse' group, or you "chmod 777 /dev/fuse").

  register$ mkdir mntpoint
  register$ sshfs break:/ mntpoint
  register$ ls mntpoint
   a    boot  etc   initrd  lib64       media  mnt  opt               proc  sbin     srv  t    u    var
   bin  dev   home  lib     lost+found  misc   net  post-changes.tar  root  selinux  sys  tmp  usr  x
  register$ echo something > mntpoint/etc/yp.conf
   bash: mntpoint/etc/yp.conf: Permission denied

Neat, but what if we want root access to that system?  Well, you can do:

  register$ sshfs root@break:/ mntpoint

You'll need the root password to that last bit.

You can go all crazy and mount a bunch of stuff at once:

  pac00# for A in `seq 0 9`; do mkdir pac0$A ; sshfs pac0$A:/ pac0$A ; done

That will make a directory for pac00 .. pac09 and mount that system's root there.  Then you could go nuts with some scripts to modify each system.  

Because this works on **any** system you can SSH to, it cuts through NAT routers and firewalls, and you can mount almost any OS, including:
  * Linux
  * VMWare ESX
  * Solaris
  * FreeBSD
  * Mac OS X
  * Windows (if you've installed an SSH server like Cygwin)