Ever wanted to browse the files in your Google Cloud Platform’s Virtual Machine through your local file explorer? Here’s one way to do that! Setting up SSH Authentication First of all, follow the steps in this article mentioned below to setup keys in your local machine & GCP VM: How to create and connect to Google Cloud Virtual Machine with SSH Ensure that you’re able to connect to your GCP VM via SSH as directed in that article before proceeding into this article. Note for users: Windows Export the private key from as an OpenSSH key by selecting “ ” and save it as “id_rsa” somewhere. PuTTYGen Conversion->Export OpenSSH Key Copy your public key from PuTTYGen and save it as “ id_rsa.pub” along with the above file. (This will be helpful if you want the public key again to use it in a new VM) Remember that you can use the same keys for any number of VMs instead of regenerating different keys. Mounting the GCP VM on Windows First, download and install the tools and . (Recommended to install the 32-bit versions (x86)) WinFSP SSHFS-Win Then copy paste the following batch script in a text editor and save it as ‘ ’ GCP_Mount.bat @ off

:: OpenSSH Private Key File KEY_PATH=C:\\Users\\GokulNC\\Desktop\\Keys\\GCP_VM\\id_rsa USERNAME=GokulNC_GCP REMOTE_DIR=/ /p IP=Enter the IP: /p DriveLetter=Enter the mount drive letter: CYGFUSE=WinFsp =C:\Program Files (x86)\SSHFS-Win\bin; sshfs.exe -ofstypename=SSHFS -o idmap=user -o umask= -o volname= -o Compression=no -o reconnect,ServerAliveInterval= -o IdentityFile= @ : :

:: Wait a few secs it to become stable
timeout > . . :\ ( Connected to @ successfully and mounted :\ . Minimize this window and continue browsing your remote host's . To terminate the connection, close this window.
) ( Connection FAILED! Close this window.
) . . > > Connection terminated. Close this window. echo set set set set set set set PATH %PATH% 000 %IP% 120 %KEY_PATH% %USERNAME% %IP% %REMOTE_DIR% %DriveLetter% for 3 NUL echo echo IF EXIST %DriveLetter% echo %USERNAME% %IP% %REMOTE_DIR% at %DriveLetter% echo echo FS echo ELSE echo echo echo pause NUL pause NUL echo Edit the ‘KEY_PATH’ variable in the script to include the path of your ‘id_rsa’, and set the ‘USERNAME’ variable to the username you created along with the keys. Double-click the script to run it and enter the details that it asks for. You should get outputs similar to below: That's it! Now you can browse your VM's files from Windows Explorer itself. Mounting the GCP VM on Linux It’s just a matter of seconds in Linux! sudo apt install sshfs
sudo mkdir /mnt/gcpVM To mount your VM to the above created mount-point, run the following one-line command with your username (ZZ) and VM’s external IP: sshfs ZZ@X.X.X.X:/ /mnt/gcpVM/ -o IdentityFile=~/.ssh/id_rsa -o reconnect,ServerAliveInterval=120 That’s it, the VM's file system should have been mounted at the given path! (I believe similar steps should be sufficient for Mac Users, let me know in comments if it doesn’t work) To unmount, use the following command: fusermount -u /mnt/gcpVM References Specifying key in SSHFS Win-SSHFS using private key SSHFS on Windows Generating SSH keys ( ) SSHFS that survives disconnects GCP Timeout — 10mins Unmounting SSHFS Linux Update: Alternate way to use SSH without needing to setup keys

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