sshfs is now unmaintained

[ohookins]

Description

As per https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs the project is now unmaintained, and so will not receive any updates or patches (including for security issues). Is there going to be a plan for replacing/removing this component from Colima?

Version

Colima Version: 0.4.6
Lima Version:
Qemu Version:

Operating System

• macOS Intel
• macOS M1
• Linux

Reproduction Steps

Expected behaviour

No response

Additional context

No response

[ohookins]

https://github.com/neunenak/sshfs seems like it could be a new successor.

[abiosoft]

The next release v0.5.0 would be moving over to 9p mounts as the default, with the option of virtiofs (and Virtualisation.Framework) for macOS 13 and above.

[rfay]

I'm pretty worried about the performance consequences of 9p.. it could be a major shock to people. Discussion in https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/C043N6ZFV9S/p1665436861986039?thread_ts=1665063734.137219&cid=C043N6ZFV9S - I know there's hope for faster 9p, but 10x slower than sshfs is a lot.

Performance testing, 9p vs sshfs mount type, here’s what I did, happy to put it in an issue:
Base drupal 9 demo_umami install using DDEV + colima, considering only the files that are typically bind-mounted (so via sshfs and 9p) in web/sites/default/files.
Testing inside container (ddev ssh, same as docker exec -it )
Both colima profiles had 4GB memory. There are 2694 files, a mixture of jpg, css, etc, a total of only 31MB.
time find . -type f -exec cp {} /dev/null ;
With Colima 9p profile: 60-67s.
With Colima sshfs profile: 7s.
That’s nearly a 10x difference, which could be a big shock to people.
You can easily recreate this with ddev and colima, brew install colima drud/ddev/ddev and use the Drupal9 quickstart in https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/quickstart/#drupal

[abiosoft]

@rfay thanks for bringing that up.

I would expect most macOS users that actually need volume mounts and filesystem performance to opt for native macOS virtualisation with virtiofs. This is being evaluated as the default option on supported systems (i.e. macOS 13).

9p is basically the standard mount option for QEMU (on Linux and now macOS) and there is continuous development and improvements in this regard, it can only get better. It is actually good enough on Linux.

I do however agree with you that it may be too early to swap sshfs with 9p and would be open to delaying this.
Also bear in mind this would affect a subset of macOS users that would not be using virtiofs either due to unsupported OS or preferring to stick to (open source) QEMU.

[rfay]

I've already hijacked this thread too much, but also discussed in slack virtiofs on Linux as used by docker desktop for Linux is completely unreliable and makes that pretty much a disaster to this point. OTOH virtiofs on docker desktop for mac is finally usable in latest release, at least with the trivial test I tried.

[AkihiroSuda]

I'm pretty worried about the performance consequences of 9p

The performance was significantly improved in QEMU 7.2.
Seems even faster than sshfs, although still slower than virtiofs (Virtualization.framework).

[rfay]

But QEMU 7.2 hasn't made it into homebrew yet, as you know. Is there an easy way to test with 7.2?

[AkihiroSuda]

But QEMU 7.2 hasn't made it into homebrew yet, as you know. Is there an easy way to test with 7.2?

brew install --HEAD qemu

[rfay]

Nice, massive progress in general.

Colima HEAD+QEMU HEAD:
ddev exec 'cd web/sites/default/files && time find . -type f -exec cp {} /dev/null \;' (Similar to previous test mentioned in slack)

9p: 3.6s
sshfs: 2.0s

Close enough not to worry now. But even sshfs seems 2x faster than before, although I didn't go back and test previous versions right now.

ddev composer install of a Drupal site is quite a lot slower with 9p than with mutagen (native linux in container), but that's thousands of files.

[fskaeh]

The next release v0.5.0 would be moving over to 9p mounts as the default, with the option of virtiofs (and Virtualisation.Framework) for macOS 13 and above.

Great to know! Is there any ETA for that release?

[abiosoft]

The next release v0.5.0 would be moving over to 9p mounts as the default, with the option of virtiofs (and Virtualisation.Framework) for macOS 13 and above.

Great to know! Is there any ETA for that release?

You can expect it to follow Lima v0.14.0 release.

[AkihiroSuda]

The next release v0.5.0 would be moving over to 9p mounts as the default, with the option of virtiofs (and Virtualisation.Framework) for macOS 13 and above.

Great to know! Is there any ETA for that release?

You can expect it to follow Lima v0.14.0 release.

FYI I think I can release Lima v0.14.0 next week. By the end of the year in the worst case.

[fskaeh]

The next release v0.5.0 would be moving over to 9p mounts as the default, with the option of virtiofs (and Virtualisation.Framework) for macOS 13 and above.

Great to know! Is there any ETA for that release?

You can expect it to follow Lima v0.14.0 release.

FYI I think I can release Lima v0.14.0 next week. By the end of the year in the worst case.

https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases/tag/v0.14.0 👀 👀 👀
I'm very ready to leave Docker Desktop behind.

[abiosoft]

@fskaeh it is now available in head. Waiting for some user feedback before pushing a release.

# ensure Lima is v0.14.0
brew install --head colima

[fskaeh]

@fskaeh it is now available in head. Waiting for some user feedback before pushing a release.

# ensure Lima is v0.14.0
brew install --head colima

Amazing, thank you! Seems to be performing really well so far.

[rfay]

See

• After the update to Lima 0.14 all containers, images and volumes are gone #506
  It's a very dangerous upgrade :)

[abiosoft]

See

• After the update to Lima 0.14 all containers, images and volumes are gone #506
  It's a very dangerous upgrade :)

😂 😂 😂 this is among of the perks of staying on the bleeding edge.

Thanks for the feedback.

[rfay]

I don't know that it's possible, but I think it would improve stability to pin colima to a particular version of lima, and to incorporate lima into colima instead of using brew to do the linkage.

The problem is this isn't "bleeding edge", it's brew upgrade, which one would expect to be relatively safe.

[abiosoft]

I don't know that it's possible, but I think it would improve stability to pin colima to a particular version of lima, and to incorporate lima into colima instead of using brew to do the linkage.

It is definitely possible and part of the plan for v1.0.0.

[AkihiroSuda]

https://github.com/neunenak/sshfs seems like it could be a new successor.

https://github.com/deadbeefsociety/sshfs seems active too

[h4sh5]

SSHFS is no longer orphaned https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs/

[ohookins]

Will close this issue in light of the previous comment. Any change to different file sharing mechanisms I'd consider a topic for another ticket.