MountBridge 1.5.0

Dead-mount detection and recovery. After a Wi-Fi change, resume from suspend, or every 60 s, MountBridge checks each mounted share without risking a hang. Shares whose server has gone show a red dot with Reconnect and Detach. Roaming and auto-mount shares are detached and remounted automatically once the server is reachable again.

Roaming mode per mount fails fast instead of hanging: NFS uses softerr,timeo=50,retrans=2 and SMB echo_interval=10. It's on by default for new mounts on laptops.

Fixes: Open Folder no longer freezes on a dead NFS mount; a card can no longer get stuck on "Working…"; a slow mount is no longer reported as failed; leftover mountpoint directories, ~/mnt shortcuts and credential files are cleaned up. The helper gains umount --force and tidy.

Install: download mountbridge_1.5.0_all.deb below, then sudo apt install ./mountbridge_1.5.0_all.deb.

Full details in CHANGELOG.md.

v1.4.0

See CHANGELOG.md: mounts can now be shown in the file manager sidebar.

MountBridge 1.3.0

Added

• Credentialed SMB share browsing. "SMB shares on host" now takes a
  username, password and optional domain, so NAS boxes that refuse anonymous
  listing (e.g. QNAP) show their shares. Login and connection failures are
  reported (Login failed, Host unreachable, …) instead of "no shares".
• Broadcast hits get a Browse Shares button that switches to share listing
  for that host.
• Each discovered share shows the local path it would be mounted at, and
  shares that are already configured show Added instead of Add Mount.
• The Add dialog opened from discovery is pre-filled with the share name,
  proposed local path, and the credentials used for listing (the password
  is saved to the keyring as usual, never to mounts.json).

Changed

• New mounts default to ~/mnt/<name> instead of ~/.mounts/<name>.
  Existing mounts keep the paths stored in their config.

MountBridge 1.2.0

⚠️ Security fix: action needed if you installed 1.1

The 1.1 installer offered a sudoers rule (/etc/sudoers.d/mountbridge) that granted mount/umount with wildcard arguments. That is equivalent to full root access for any process running as your user (for example mount --bind over /etc). Upgrading to 1.2.0 replaces the rule automatically, with both the .deb and install.sh. If you can't upgrade right away, remove it now:

   sudo rm /etc/sudoers.d/mountbridge

Install

Download mountbridge_1.2.0_all.deb below. It works on Debian 12, 13 and testing, Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, and derivatives (Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, …):

   sudo apt install ./mountbridge_1.2.0_all.deb

The installer asks whether to give you NFS/SMB access; log out and back in afterwards. Other users can request access from inside MountBridge (Grant Access…, administrator password required), or an administrator can run sudo adduser <user> mountbridge. SSHFS needs none of this. Coming from install.sh? See Switching from install.sh in the README.

What's new

• Least-privilege NFS/SMB mounting: a small validating root helper, the only thing the sudoers rule allows, for members of the mountbridge group. It allows only nfs/cifs and allow-listed options, always adds nosuid,nodev, and mounts only under root-owned /mnt/mountbridge/<user>/.
• Debian package, built and install-tested in CI on five distributions.
• Fixes: pip install was broken; the UI could freeze on a hung NFS server; a corrupt config could be silently wiped; closing the window quit the app; several errors failed silently.
• Behaviour changes:
  • NFS/SMB mounts live at /mnt/mountbridge/<user>/<name>, with a shortcut at ~/.mounts/<name>.
  • NFS defaults to rw,hard.
  • Autostart launches minimised to the tray.

Full details: CHANGELOG.md

Testing status

• Verified:
  • SSHFS end to end.
  • Package build and install on Debian 12/13/testing and Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 in CI.
  • The install-time question and Grant Access on Debian testing with Xfce.
• Not yet verified against a real NFS or SMB server. The helper's validation is covered by automated tests, but please report any mount problems as an issue.