Accessing remote Directories with kio_fish

Here is a tip for anyone who uses KDE and needs to access remote directories, but does not like the insecurity of NFS, or the flakiness of LISa (well I find it flaky)

Konqueror now supports a new plugin called kio_fish. The plugin is installed by default in Mandrake 9.2 onwards, and as a package in contrib prior to 9.2. Kio_fish uses sftp to access folders on remote hosts. The remote host does not need to be Linux. All it needs is to be running an ssh service.

Install the openssh, and openssh-clients RPMs on the client, and the openssh and openssh-server RPMs on the remote server you want to connect to, then in a konqueror file manager you can just enter the address of a remote computer in this format.

fish://username@hostname/path/to/directory

Note: In this image the 'Network' sidebar view shows a number of 'fish' locations. You can insert locations into the sidebar simply by drag/drop a favicon from the URL line into a folder on the sidebar.

So long as sshd is running on the remote computer, and you give the correct password when prompted, then konq will be able to access the remote directories as if they were local.

Bookmark the location for rapid access next time.

You can use the 'fish' URL in any KDE application, so you can open and save documents directly on remote servers.

kio_fish uses ssh to manage security. By default ssh allows anyone who knows the username/password to access the ssh server. This page describes how to configure ssh to use public/private keys so that passwords become unnecessary. It is then possible to use fish to access folders securely over the Internet.

PROS: -very secure, good integration with konqueror and KDE apps.

CONS: -Not compatible with non KDE applications

Note: If fish does not work for you take a look at your firewall. You must open Port 22 between your computers. Naturally you should not open port 22 to the Internet at large unless you have secured ssh with public/private keys.

Thursday 15th April 2004