Question

I am running a remote application and use x11 forwarding to display it on my screen. Can I let the remote application use my LOCAL usb port to access devices (e.g. usb disks)? If so, detailed procedure please.

Thanks!

Answer 1

This should do the work if you just need to read/write files on a USB drive.

You could mount your local usb on the remote computer using sshfs:

You need to install ssh on both computers:

$sudo apt-get install ssh

Plug your usb stick. You will probably have automount, if not, mount the usb drive manually:

$sudo mkdir /media/localUSB
$sudo shown YOUR_LOCAL_USER /media/localUSB 
#replace YOUR_LOCAL_USER with your current user name of the local machine
$sudo mount /dev/sdbX /media/localUSB 
#replace X with your usb device number

Then you need to install sshfs on the remote computer:

$sudo apt-get install sshfs

Create a mount point for your usb stick on the remote computer:

$sudo mkdir /media/remoteUSB
$sudo shown YOUR_REMOTE_USER /media/remoteUSB 
#replace YOUR_REMOTE_USER with your current user name of the remote machine

Finally, mount it with sshfs:

$sshfs LOCAL_COMPUTER_ADRESS:LOCAL_USB_MOUNT_POINT /media/remoteUSB  -o ssh_command="ssh -l YOUR_REMOTE_USER" #l is L, not one
#replace LOCAL_COMPUTER_ADRESS with your local computer ip or host name
#replace LOCAL_USB_MOUNT_POINT with the directory whre the usb is mounted. If you made de manual mounting process, it should be: /media/localUSB
#replace YOUR_REMOTE_USER with your current user name of the remote machine

I dont know if you can remote mount /dev/sdbX using sshfs. If you need direct access to the USB port you should try it, but I never did it.