Mount FTP as directory on Linux

Today i figured a nice tool to “symlink” a directory to a FTP server / mountpoint.

The app is called CurlFTPFS (there are other, old ones, but this one seems the only one wich is still good enough to be in the Debian packages).

To install simply run a

aptitude install curlftpfs

Then you can easily link folders via

curlftpfs ftp://myftp/ folder_link

(you need to create an empty folder via mkdir first!)

It surely also supports user and passwords, even SSL.

If you want to remove the FTP link again it is important that you do it via

unmount

directly doing a rm -r or rmdir WONT work as this “link” is actually a true mount and not a symlink (so a rm -r before unmount would even delete the files on the FTP for god if you´re authed or have otherwise delete access on that FTP). After unmount you can remove the folder then finaly via rm -r.