Abstract

FUSE-T is a kext-less implementation of FUSE for macOS that uses NFS v4 local server instead of a kernel extension.
The main motivation is to replace 'macfuse' project (https://osxfuse.github.io/) that implements its own kext to make fuse work. With each version of macOS it's getting harder and harder to load kernel extensions. Apple strongly discourages it thus making software distributions that use 'macfuse' difficult to install. Additionally, the 'macfuse' kext is unstable, may cause frequent system crashes and kernel lock-ups. Given those limitations many software publishers are unable to use 'macfuse' project anymore.

FUSE-T doesn't make use of kernel extension, it implements its own userspace server that converts between FUSE protocol and NFS/SMB/FSKit and let macOS mount a network volume instead of a kernel filesystem.

The main features of FUSE-T

• Drop-in replacement for 'macfuse' (https://osxfuse.github.io/). API headers in libfuse are unchanged so there's no need to change anything in filesystem implementation. The APIs are compatible with 'macfuse' but differ from the Linux version of libfuse and this is because the 'macfuse' project was not updated in sync with the Linux version
• Kext-less, no kernel extensions needed
• NFSv4 protocol to better support macOS features such as extended attributes, file locks and others
• SMB3 protocol support
• FSKit for macOS 26+
• Stable, easy to mount and unmount volumes with macOS built-in tools, no need for proprietary fusermount
• Good performance

How FUSE-T works

When a filesystem issues a mount API call, libfuse launches a FUSE-T NFS/SMB/FSKit server that exposes a local TCP port to the macOS mount proccess and another communication channel to libfuse. After that a macOS mount command is executed and the client establishes an RPC channel to the server. The server converts RPC calls into FUSE requests that emulate original kernel-libfuse protocol. Those requests are executed in libfuse and corresponding FUSE filesystem, then the result is converted back to the macOS client. After the filesystem process dies the server terminates, it also unmounts the folder mounted previously. SMB and FSKit backends were added as NFS alternatives

Other details

See wiki for more information.

Download the latest version of fuse-t:
https://github.com/macos-fuse-t/fuse-t/releases/download/1.2.1/fuse-t-macos-installer-1.2.1.pkg

if you have any questions or comments, contact me at alex@fuse-t.org

Installing from brew

brew install macos-fuse-t/homebrew-cask/fuse-t

For sshfs:

brew install macos-fuse-t/homebrew-cask/sshfs-fuse-t

Possible Issues

-- "Operation not permitted"

From a terminal, if you find that you can not read the contents of a folder under the FUSE file system, it may be that access to "Network Volumes" is not enabled. See "System Settings" / "Privacy & Security" / "Files and Folders" / / "Network Volumes" and ensure it is enabled. This is a consequence of fuse-t leveraging the nfs system under the covers.