How to mount local directory to remote hosts?

Question

I'm doing some experiments with some computers I have, I have the following scenario

local network
  host1 [ubuntu]
vps [internet]
  host2 [CentOS]

I have an external hard disk connected to the host1 and my goal is to be able to access those files from the host2(VPS)

I can reach the host2 from the host1 over ssh but not backwards

host1 ---ssh--> host2 //possible
host1 <--ssh--- host2 //not possible

what I have done so far:

I tried using sshfs with reverse tunneling but I just can't have it work, I have seen lot's of examples where the connection is done from host2 to host1 but in my case since I can't ssh to host1 the samples I see don't work and there is very little info about reverse tunneling with sshfs

also, I tried with mount-on but it didn't work

is this possible under these conditions? if so, what am I missing? is there something easier?

thank you

Answer 1

is late but... maybe other can use this.

If you want to connect the remote server to your local computer, make a tunnel with ssh.

$ ssh -NR 6969:localhost:22 my-ssh-key

Then you have a connection on the remote server in port 6969 to your local machine. Now just type this code to connect your local directory to the remote server.

$ sshfs -p 6969 YOUR_USER@localhost:/LOCAL_DIRECTORY/ /YOUR_REMOTE_MOUNT_POINT/

Answer 2

after struggling, for a couple of hours, I found out that there is no way to solve the issue without having bidirectional communication, so, what I did was to set up a VPN to have communication from the host2 to host1.

The full detailed procedure that I followed is available here hope it helps you if you are trying to accomplish something similar