Both solutions samba and nfs.server do not offer security though encryption and are thus only suited for use in a closed intranet. If you need to remotely access files over the internet, it is better to use an encrypted solution. Whilst not offering as strong an encryption as a VPN, it is quite easy to set up. In this recipe you will be shown how to set up and configure a sshfs instead of using OpenVPN or setting up a encrypted tunnel with network. sshfs is based on SFTP so you need to install sftp support on the server.

• openssh-sftp-server

There is nothing more to be done on the server. Now you can mount your sshfs by executing:

sshfs [user@]host:[dir] mountpoint

If you did not install the package to the standard destination (e.g. using opkg -d ram), you need to specify the sftp executable in your sshfs command:

sshfs [user@]host:[dir] mountpoint -o sftp_server=/tmp/usr/libexec/sftp-server

The more convenient way would be to link the binary to the default destination, so execute on your OpenWrt:

mkdir -p /usr/libexec
ln -s /tmp/usr/libexec/sftp-server /usr/libexec/sftp-server

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell_Filesystem
• http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html