Symlinks not accessible when mounting with sshfs

Franco Martelli <[email protected]> Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:44:17 +0200
Newsgroups gmane.linux.debian.user
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi,

I've the following issue with sshfs while it doesn't happen when I login 
using ssh:

root@itek:~# sshfs rpi:/ /media/raspberrypi
root@itek:~# LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 ls -l -a -h 
/media/raspberrypi/etc/alternatives/rsh
ls: cannot read symbolic link '/media/raspberrypi/etc/alternatives/rsh': 
Operation not permitted
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Nov 27  2019 
/media/raspberrypi/etc/alternatives/rsh
root@itek:~# /bin/fusermount -u /media/raspberrypi/
root@itek:~# ssh rpi

[...]

root@raspberrypi:~# LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 ls -l -a -h /etc/alternatives/rsh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Nov 27  2019 /etc/alternatives/rsh -> /usr/bin/ssh

I pick "/etc/alternatives/rsh" as case test but many symlinks cannot be 
read when mounting the filesystem via sshfs. I don't want to use the 
option "follow_symlinks":

root@itek:~# sshfs -o follow_symlinks rpi:/ /media/raspberrypi
root@itek:~# LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 ls -l -a -h 
/media/raspberrypi/etc/alternatives/rsh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 771K Apr 16 18:19 
/media/raspberrypi/etc/alternatives/rsh
root@itek:~# /bin/fusermount -u /media/raspberrypi/

because sshfs replace the symlink with the pointed file, I just want the 
symlink be readable. Does anybody know how to accomplish that?

Thank you very much for any hint, kind regards.