My friend Justin showed me a cool trick this week – mapping any SSH server as a network drive in Ubuntu. This is really useful for web development, where you have a whole bunch of servers that you have to connect to, transfer files to and from, and make small edits.
The integration is pretty seamless – it shows up in my file browser (just like a local USB drive), I can open files in any app I want, and every time I save the changes are synced back. Pretty cool.
Here’s how:
- Open your Home Folder
- In the menu, choose “File -> Connect to Server”
- Change the type to “SSH”
- Enter the address of your server.
eg. myvps.mydomain.com or 192.168.1.5 - Enter your username and password.
(Note: If you have public / private keys set up, just enter the username.) - Click Connect
This all comes built in with Ubuntu 12.04.