# fish

Allows you to access another computer's files using a simple SSH shell account and standard UNIX utilities on the remote side. This way, no server software is needed and you get access to that computer's files as if they were local (or on NFS, since it is slower than local access). It uses the same protocol as `MidnightCommander`'s #sh VFS handler.

FISH should work with any roughly POSIX compatible UNIX based remote computer. It uses the shell commands `cat`, `chgrp`, `chmod`, `chown`, `cp`, `dd`, `env`, `expr`, `grep`, `ls`, `mkdir`, `mv`, `rm`, `rmdir`, `sed`, and `wc`. FISH starts `/bin/sh` as its shell and expects it to be a bourne shell (or compatible, like `bash`). If the `sed` and `file` commands and a `/etc/apache/magic` file with mime type signatures are available, these will be used to guess mime types.

If `perl` is available on the remote machine, it will be used instead. Then only `env` and `/bin/sh` are needed. Using perl has the additional benefit of being faster. Unfortunately, the perl server part is not yet implemented. Without it, performance is still quite good.

FISH may even work on Windows machines if tools like Cygwin are installed. All the above utilities must be on the system `PATH`, and the initial shell must be able to process the command `echo FISH:;/bin/sh` correctly.