Mounting Linode storage on home computer

You want sshfs.

@Cromulent:

that doesn't really offer any protection when mounting file systems across a public network
These cases are where VPN/tunneling protocols like L2TP and OpenVPN work nicely. The Linode Library has a fairly illustrative article on the latter.

Your assertion about NFS specifically is not entirely true, however. rfc5403 defines RPCSEC_GSS–secure token exchange for RPC protocols (like NFS). Machine and user service principals are issued by a KDC, which generates tickets that are used to authenticate each. The rpc.gssd(8) manpage also describes the (optional) cryptography mechanisms you can utilize for the transfer of your actual payload.

And once you set up your KDC, ssh/pam-krb5 authentication is actually quite fun, as a bonus.

@anderiv:

You want sshfs.
sshfs, particularly due to being implemented using FUSE hackery, ends up being quite non-performant and not a very fun experience.

@buhman:

Of all options, sshfs, particularly due to being implemented using FUSE hackery, ends up being quite non-performant and not a very fun experience.

I dare say, NFS over VPN wouldn't be a great experience either. :)

There was a point where FUSE filesystems did suck performance wise, but in my experience, things have drastically improved through the last couple years. Honestly, over a high-latency WAN connection, whatever performance issues FUSE has are not going to be the performance bottleneck.