Mount ext2/3/4, NTFS file systems

Mac OS X does not have native kernel support for the ext2/3/4 file systems used by most Linux distributions and the NTFS file system used by Windows. MacFUSE is a loadable kernel module for MacOS based on the GPLed Linux module FUSE, which provides a “bridge” to the kernel interfaces and allows file system code to run in user space. fuse-ext2, NTFS-3G for Mac OS X, and NTFS for Mac OS X are file systems built on top of FUSE.

Installation

Main Installation:

• Download the MacFUSE dmg file and then run the installer. (OSXFuse and FUSE4X have been succeeded by MacFUSE)

• Download the SSHFS pkg file and run the installer.

Optional Installation for compatibility with NTFS (Windows) or ext2/3/4 (Linux) type storage systems:

• Download and install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X from here. If needed, mount manually using mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/disk2s1
• For ext2/3/4 support, follow the installation guide for fuse-ext2 in the MacOS section. If the hard drive does not auto-mount, mount it manually with something like mkdir /Volumes/disk2s1 && fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/disk2s1

Mounting the remote folder

• Create a folder in your Home directory where you would like to access the remote filesystem, i.e. the mount point. (e.g. mkdir ~/sshfs/)
• Link the remote folder to the mount point using sshfs with the following: sshfs group-server:path/to/directory /path/to/mount/point/
• If you are using a key-based-ssh and would like to add it’s path to the IdentityFile parameter, append ,IdentityFile=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa to the above line.
  • For more options when mounting, see the MacFuse Wiki page

Unmounting the remote folder

• If the mount becomes stuck or unresponsive you can force an unmount with the following: diskutil unmount force /path/to/mount/point/