Editing Files Remotely in Linux with gEdit and Others

Posted Thursday 20th August 2009

The flexibility of the Nautilus file manager on GNOME allows you to easily access remote filesystems via FTP as if it was mounted as a local directory.

Firing up gEdit got me thinking “Can I use gEdit’s file browser to edit remote files?”. Yes you can and in theory you should be able to open and edit any remote files with any application on Linux.

1. Connecting to a Server in GNOME
2. Opening Remote Files in gEdit

1. Connecting to a Server in GNOME

In GNOME you can connect to a server by going to Places > Connect to Server… Select the Service Type, for example FTP (with login), fill out the fields such as the server, port and username etc and hit Connect. If your FTP access requires a password you will be prompted to enter one.

Connect to Server GNOME

Once you’ve successfully connected you can access a list of connections via the ~/.gvfs/ directory. Alternatively it should be listed like a mounted filesystem under Places from the panel and from the file manager itself.

Connect FTP GNOME

2. Opening Remote Files in gEdit

Now that your FTP connection has been mounted on the virtual file system you can access it from gEdit and most other editors.

For gEdit just make sure you select the “File Browser” tab at the bottom left of the “File Browser” panel. I know that sounds strange but it’s accurate!