I think this is downvoted because it's considered slow and/or hacky and having a fair amount of overhead (especially for SSH -- e.g. User and Key management).

I think this is downvoted because it's considered slow and/or hacky and having a fair amount of overhead (especially for SSH -- e.g. User and Key management). That being said, I think the explanation is not available because ... people aren't really sure about a better option! If we take the common (IMO complex) Network filesystem protocol implementations as having irredeemable flaws (so SMB and NFS, all versions), the only viable contenders I can think of are block level network device protocols. E.g.: iSCSI, NBD, DRBD, and probably quite a few others. These of course have the disadvantage of exposing block level protocols to clients, leaving the actual filesystem management up to the client. Summary: it's always a tradeoff and most of the options suck in one way or another. I personally wouldn't downvote this comment. But maybe someone could enlighten me.