How to use SSHFS with root with a Vagrant Debian

Hello,

First we modify configuration of openssh-server to allow connection with root. So we change this line in /etc/ssh/sshd_config :

PermitRootLogin yes

Then we restart the SSH server:

sudo systemctl restart ssh

We have to copy the SSH private key in root home folder. The simplest is to do that:

sudo cp -r ~/.ssh /root/

To connect to the server easily, we’ll use a ssh config file. Vagrant can generate content of it:

$ vagrant ssh-config 
Host default
  HostName 127.0.0.1
  User vagrant
  Port 2222
  UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
  StrictHostKeyChecking no
  PasswordAuthentication no
  IdentityFile /home/authmane512/domopi-vm/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key
  IdentitiesOnly yes
  LogLevel FATAL

We change this line:

  User root

You can also change host name to what you like:

Host MyVagrantVM

And put that in .ssh/config folder.

Now to connect, we only need to do:

$ ssh MyVagrantVM
Linux stretch 4.9.0-6-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.82-1+deb9u3 (2018-03-02) x86_64
root@stretch:~#

So to use SSHFS, do:

sudo mkdir /media/ssh
sudo chmod 777 /media/ssh
sshfs MyVagrantVM:/home/vagrant /media/ssh

To unmount:

sudo umount /media/ssh

That’s all!