How do I mount a remote Linux folder in Windows through SSH?

Viewed 308913

I'm a blind student currently in a system admin/shell programming class. Although ssh works fine for executing commands like ls, pwd, etc editors do not work well with my screen reader and an ssh session. I was wondering if it is possible to mount a Linux folder over ssh so it appears as a windows drive? This way I could edit any files I needed to with accessible software and not have to constantly use SCP to send files back and fourth.

10 Answers

Back in 2002, Novell developed some software called NetDrive that can map a WebDAV, FTP, SFTP, etc. share to a windows drive letter. It is now abandonware, so it's no longer maintained (and not available on the Novell website), but it's free to use. I found quite a few available to download by searching for "netdrive.exe" I actually downloaded a few and compared their md5sums to make sure that I was getting a common (and hopefully safe) version.

Update 10 Nov 2017 SFTPNetDrive is the current project from the original netdrive project. And they made it free for personal use:

We Made SFTP Net Drive FREE for Personal Use

They have paid options as well on the website.

Dokan looks like a FUSE and sshfs implementation for Windows. If it works as expected and advertised, it would do exactly what you are looking for.

(Link updated and working 2015-10-15)

You need to mount a remote share on your windows machine. This is what Samba/smb is for.

What you'll be doing is turning your Linux box into an SMB server, which lets it share files in a way that plays nice with Windows.

If you're not on the same network, you'll need to tunnel this through your SSH connection which may not be worth the effort.

I don't think you can mount a Linux folder as a network drive under windows having only access to ssh. I can suggest you to use WinSCP that allows you to transfer file through ssh and it's free.

EDIT: well, sorry. Vinko posted before me and now i've learned a new thing :)

Apparently the free NetDrive software from Novell can access SFTP file servers.

Related