I use both of these systems daily. They have some issues but are just fine for me. Honestly, they are just opposite extremes and I repeat that. They each chose a side.
Whereas windows makes me scream. It’s absolute horseshit that pretends to claim some middle ground that makes no one happy.
The post refers SSHFS which is based upon FUSE, a very neat technology in the Linux kernel which allows a non-kernel develloper - says a python developer-to turn anything into a hierarchy of files and folders, that you can access and modify with your regular local applications. When I says anything, I’m dead serious, FUSE may turn the whole internet into a fake browsable tree of local files on your system. On windows, you have to write a fake disk driver to mimic a fraction of the feature. I don’t know ios but I guess Apple wouldn’t never allow such a wizardry by design.
Only tangentially related, since I don’t think NBD uses FUSE, but may I present Harder Drive
Also Windows: “Ask your network administrator for access.”
Me: “Well I’m my own network administrator so what questions do you want me to ask myself”?
Windows: “Enter network username and password.”
Me: There is no network username or password. Sod it, I’ll bung them on an external disk.
That’s a security quirk. Microsoft reeeeeally doesn’t want you to do anonymous SMB anymore, and with every version of Windows, Microsoft has made is more complicated to get it working like that. It’s probably still possible, but easier just to make a quick local user account and assign it read/write permissions to the share. Samba on Linux can still do it without as much fuss, but I’ve long since just accepted the extra step.
I would say not much. If it’s your own personal LAN, and only your devices are on it, and you’re not hosting super sensitive data, then I wouldn’t personally be worried. Just depends on your risk acceptance.
Edit: But if you are hosting sensitive data on an untrusted network, then definitely require a user with a strong password. Also, SMB3 and higher supports encryption (both in Windows and Samba for Linux). Encryption isn’t enabled by default, though. So keep that in mind. Easy to setup on both Windows and Linux.
Wouldn’t you just use AFS, CEPH, NFS, or 9p?
I really don’t want to be that guy, but isn’t SSHFS (FUSE) actually a terrible option when compared to an actual file-system? MacOS isn’t really missing out on much there.
The most painful part of MacOS (which makes it downright unbearable for me) is that system configuration files are XML. It’s an absolute nightmare.
SSHFS uses SFTP which is built into SSH, so no server to install. Its not as fast as NFS, but requires no setup. For something small like a home lab, that is a big advantage.
SSHFS is secure and works well over the internet. If you only want to access it over the LAN, then NFS is a much better option.
For some (most?) of us, we don’t have ssh access open to the world, so everything is over a VPN. So I can just use NFS over WireGuard which afaik is fairly secure, if you trust your endpoints, and works great over the Internet.
I’ve never had good luck with NFS on a high latency connection. SSHFS still works fine even if the server is on the other side of the planet.
I have a mac I use for some specific tasks. I’ll agree the Apple is, ehh, Apple.
But mounting network fileshares is dead simple. My SMB share pops right up, authentication works fine, the user interface for it is fine. If I wanted to use it remotely, I’d just export it over my tailnet.
’sshfs’ is good for short stints of brief use, but ultimately it breaks on a protocol level as soon as your socket dies, on any OS.
Both the default network mounting options in Gnome and KDE won’t let applications access the network drive. You have to mount using SMB4k or cifutils if you want application access. I’ve not used MacOS in over a decade but that functionality works seamlessly in windows for SMB shares. It’s honestly a minor reason (among others) I went back to windows.
Unless supporting a Windows client is an absolute must, I’ve found NFS shares to be far preferable. I’ve experienced quicker speeds, fewer disconnections, and less corruption. The only downside I’ve encountered is the client hanging if the server goes down, but there are solutions to that.
I will admit I’ve never done anything beyond simple network shares with NFS, so it’s possible that there are use cases (besides involving Windows, by which I also mean Active Directory) is better.
