A network mount manager for XFCE / Debian — NFS, SMB/CIFS and SSHFS from one native GTK3 window.
Passwords stay in the system keyring, live mounts are picked up from the kernel mount table, and NFS/SMB go through a small validating root helper — SSHFS never touches root.
Mounted by a small validating root helper that only members of the mountbridge group may run. Options are allow-listed, nosuid,nodev is always added, and the default is rw,hard — or, in Roaming mode, softerr,timeo=50,retrans=2, so a vanished server returns an error instead of hanging. Exports are discovered with showmount.
Same helper; credentials go in on stdin, never on the command line, and uid/gid are forced to the calling user. Credentialed share browsing means NAS boxes that refuse anonymous listing still show their shares.
Fully user-space — root is never involved and no group membership is needed. Passwords are passed with -o password_stdin.
NFS/SMB mount at /mnt/mountbridge/<user>/<name> (root-owned), with ~/mnt/<name> as a shortcut.
Passwords are stored via SecretService (gnome-keyring, KWallet) — never in mounts.json, never in plaintext on disk.
Watches /proc/self/mountinfo and updates instantly. Mounts made outside the app appear with an Import button; a hung server can't freeze the UI.
SMB hosts via Avahi mDNS, shares via smbclient, NFS exports via showmount — with Add Mount pre-filled from what it finds.
Per-mount toggle. Runs when MountBridge starts, waits for the network, reports failures — and remounts after a Wi-Fi change or resume.
xfwm4 server-side decorations, an Ayatana AppIndicator3 tray icon, and libnotify notifications. Closing the window keeps it in the tray.
The sudoers rule allows exactly one command — the helper — and only for the mountbridge group. Unmounts are limited to the caller's own directory.
After a Wi-Fi change, a resume from suspend, or every 60 s, mounts are probed without risking a hang. A share whose server has gone turns red with Reconnect and Detach — no more frozen file managers.
For laptops: fail fast instead of hanging, then detach and remount automatically once the server is reachable again. On by default for new mounts when MountBridge runs on a laptop.
A bookmark toggle puts any mount in Thunar's side pane and GTK file dialogs, pointing at its ~/mnt/<name> path.
One _all.deb for Debian 12, 13 and testing, Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, and derivatives such as Linux Mint and Pop!_OS. apt pulls in the dependencies.
During install you're asked whether you should get NFS/SMB access — answer yes, then log out and back in once. SSHFS works for everyone without it.
Answered no, or adding another user? Use Grant Access… in the app, sudo dpkg-reconfigure mountbridge, or sudo adduser <user> mountbridge.
NEW IN 1.5.0 — dead-mount detection & automatic reconnect after Wi-Fi changes and resume · Roaming mode (on by default on laptops)
# Debian package (recommended) $ wget https://github.com/mpx14/mountbridge/releases/download/v1.5.0/mountbridge_1.5.0_all.deb $ sudo apt install ./mountbridge_1.5.0_all.deb # build the .deb yourself $ git clone https://github.com/mpx14/mountbridge.git $ cd mountbridge $ sudo apt-get build-dep ./ $ make deb # → dist/mountbridge_<version>_all.deb # or from source, without a package $ bash install.sh