Secure network mounts?

Question

I have a large-capacity file storage server ('Storagebox') which other systems mount to to access certain files. One of these systems ('Securebox') is 100% managed by another person and I have no access to it. 'Securebox' needs to mount a directory on 'Storagebox' but there is risk of sensitive data being sniffed between the two servers, therefore requiring the connection to be encrypted. Is this possible to achieve, and what would be the best method of doing so in a pure Linux environment? Preferably authentication could be handled via preshared key.

Answer 1

You could use sshfs. It is secure as you can pre-share the key and also all communication is encrypted.

http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html

Answer 2

Create a VPN between the two servers with OpenVPN, and then use a networking protocol of your choice over the encrypted VPN connection to mount and share files.

Answer 3

If you want to keep the data hidden from the anyone on the remote end, use iSCSI Enterprise Target (iet) to expose the block device as an iSCSI target. Then use truecrypt or cryptsetup on mounted iSCSI devices on your end.

Since the encryption/decryption is done entirely on your end there's no need to encrypt the transport at all.