FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) rocks. Case in point, sshfs. – It’s a filesystem client based on the SSH File Transfer Protocol. Since most SSH servers already support this protocol it is very easy to set up: i.e. on the server side there’s nothing to do. On the client side mounting the filesystem is as easy as logging into the server with ssh.

To set it up, just do this once:

$ sudo apt-get install sshfs
$ sudo adduser yourlocalusername fuse
(log out and back in so that it recognizes me as a member of the group "fuse")

Mounting is as easy as:

$ sshfs yourremoteusername@remotehost: mountpoint

To unmount:

$ fusermount -u mountpoint

Tip of the hat to Ubuntonista and of course Miklos Szeredi.