BackTunnel – Reverse SSH Folder Sharing Toolkit

Share and mount folders between Linux machines behind NAT/firewalls using two friendly commands.

✨ Commands

backtunnel-share

Start a reverse SSH tunnel from the sharing machine for a limited time.

backtunnel-share /path/to/folder with remoteuser:remotehost for <duration> [options]
# or: remoteuser@remotehost

Duration formats: 30m, 2h, 1d (passed to timeout)

Options

• -p, --tunnel-port <PORT>: Remote port to expose with -R (default: 2222)
• -l, --local-ssh-port <PORT>: Local sshd port to forward to (default: 22)
• -i, --invite: Print a ready-to-copy access command for the remote user
• --invite-mount <PATH>: Suggest mount point in the invite (default: /mnt/remote-rssh)
• --invite-file <FILE>: Also write the invite text (including unmount hint) to a file
• --qr: Render the invite as a QR code (requires qrencode)

Examples

# Share for 2h
backtunnel-share ~/projects with alice@vps.example.com for 2h

# Share and print a one-liner invite for chat
backtunnel-share ~/projects with alice@vps.example.com for 2h -i

# Share with custom ports and QR invite
backtunnel-share ~/projects with alice@vps.example.com for 1d -p 4422 -l 2222 -i --qr

The invite will look like this and can be pasted on the remote host:

backtunnel-access '/home/user/projects' from alice@vps.example.com -p 4422 -m '/mnt/remote-rssh'

Unmount on the remote side with:

fusermount -u /mnt/remote-rssh

backtunnel-access

Mount a folder from the remote side via SSHFS.

backtunnel-access /path/to/folder from remoteuser:remotehost [options]
# or: remoteuser@remotehost

Options

• -p, --port <PORT>: Port on the remote host where the reverse tunnel listens (default: 2222)
• -m, --mount-point <PATH>: Local mount point (default: /mnt/remote-rssh)

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🧰 Dolphin Service Menus

Two context actions for Dolphin:

• Share via BackTunnel… (right-click a folder on the sharing machine)
• Access via BackTunnel… (right-click a folder path on the remote machine)

Installed into:

• Plasma 6: /usr/share/kio/servicemenus/
• Plasma 5: /usr/share/kservices5/ServiceMenus/

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🔐 Requirements

• ssh, sshfs, timeout, konsole, kdialog
• Optional:
  • bash-completion
  • qrencode (for QR-code invites)

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📦 Install

sudo bash scripts/install.sh

Uninstall:

sudo bash scripts/uninstall.sh

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📖 Man Page

man backtunnel

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🧾 License

Licensed under GNU GPL v3.0. See LICENSE.