How to Mount Google Drive on VPS

Prerequisites

Before mounting Google Drive, make sure you have:

• SSH access to your VPS
• Root or sudo privileges
• A Google account with Drive access

Method 1: Using google-drive-ocamlfuse (Recommended)

Connect to your VPS:

ssh hxroot@YOUR_SERVER_IP -p 22

Install dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common -y
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alessandro-strada/ppa -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install google-drive-ocamlfuse -y

Create mount point:

mkdir -p ~/googledrive

Authenticate (requires GUI or headless setup):

For headless server, run:

google-drive-ocamlfuse -headless -label=default

Follow the URL to get verification code, then paste it back.

Mount Google Drive:

google-drive-ocamlfuse ~/googledrive

Method 2: Using rclone (More Lightweight)

Install rclone:

curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash

Configure Google Drive:

rclone config

Follow prompts:

• Select n for new remote
• Name: gdrive
• Select drive (number for Google Drive)
• Follow authentication steps (headless mode)

Mount with rclone:

mkdir -p ~/googledrive
rclone mount gdrive: ~/googledrive --daemon

Auto-mount at boot (add to crontab):

@reboot /usr/bin/rclone mount gdrive: /home/user/googledrive --daemon

Method 3: Using gcsfuse (Google Cloud Storage)

For Google Cloud Storage buckets (not Drive):

export GCSFUSE_REPO=gcsfuse-`lsb_release -c -s`
echo "deb http://packages.cloud.google.com/apt $GCSFUSE_REPO main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gcsfuse.list
curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gcsfuse -y
mkdir -p /mnt/bucket
gcsfuse my-bucket /mnt/bucket

Test Google Drive Mount

ls -la ~/googledrive
echo "Hello from VPS" > ~/googledrive/test.txt

Check file in Google Drive web interface.

Unmount Google Drive

fusermount -u ~/googledrive

Or if using rclone:

sudo umount ~/googledrive

Set Up as System Service (rclone)

Create systemd service:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/rclone-gdrive.service

[Unit]
Description=Rclone Google Drive Mount
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=forking
User=root
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount gdrive: /root/googledrive --daemon
ExecStop=/bin/fusermount -u /root/googledrive
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable rclone-gdrive
sudo systemctl start rclone-gdrive