Setting Up a Remote Server Mount

Before setting up a mount, make sure the Remote Server you want to mount has already been added and configured.

Site Administrators and Workspace Administrators can set up Remote Server Mounts. Workspace Administrators can configure mounts only on folders within their Workspace and cannot configure mounts on folders outside their current Workspace.

Select the desired Remote server from the available choices, and optionally enter a Name and Description for this mount. A meaningful name and description helps colleagues, or your future self, refer to the mount later.

Select the Remote Folder on the system that will be mounted onto the folder.

Files.com keeps the paths requested through a mount within the selected Remote Folder. The remote server determines which files those paths reach: its symbolic links or WebDAV redirects can lead to files outside that folder.

For example, on an SFTP server, a symbolic link at /exports/finance/archive can point to /exports/hr. Mounting /exports/finance then makes the HR files reachable through archive if the remote account has access. Users can read, change, or delete the target files as allowed by their Files.com folder permissions and the remote account. To exclude the target from the mount, restrict the remote account's access on that server.

Select the Local Folder of your Files.com site that you want to use as the mount point.

Use an empty subfolder as the mount point for most deployments. Mounting the site root is supported, but makes the remote system the storage behind the entire site. For that arrangement, consider a Child Site with its root mount configured through the CLI App or API.

A Sync can use a mounted folder as a source or destination. The Sync transfers files to or from the remote storage behind that mount.

Mount Setup Restrictions

A mount cannot be set up on a folder that contains any files or subfolders. Mounting changes which storage serves the folder path: file operations are routed to the Remote Server. The mount displays the remote folder's contents; it does not merge them with existing Files.com content.

A mount is mutually exclusive with a folder's geographic Storage Region setting. A folder can be configured with either a Remote Mount or a Storage Region, but not both. When a mount is configured for a folder, it overrides the Storage Region setting of that folder. The geographic storage region of a Remote Mount is determined by the physical location of its associated Remote Server.