I've been experimenting with mount $HOME over sshfs.

First set up SSH, so you can do a password less login from client to server as the desired user.

Next mount $HOME so;
sshfs -o nonempty -o allow_root -o ServerAliveInterval user@server: /home/user

nonempty: is required because the users ".ssh" directory just got buried.

allow_root: is required so that GNOME can establish relevant files exist.

ServerAliveInterval: is suppose to help keep things alive, probably not needed, but I added it as I think I hit bug 409554 and it was a suggested fix for the same symptom.


Now move the .ICEauthority file onto a none sshfs filesystem by placing;

export ICEAUTHORITY=/tmp/.ICEauthority

In the .gnomerc file.

The ICE authority file has to move, because they do something weird with the locking. Login to GNOME, and wait for the painful loss of $HOME as you hit bug 409554. When it doesn't crash it seemed to work quite well, but 409554 makes sshfs pretty suspect for a lot of tasks.

I'm not sure I have the optimal settings for the mount to work (or for avoiding dataloss). I have lost data already. I suspect sshfs crashed the client system at one point, but now I need to prove it.

Here be dragons, or is that dancing elephants?