Access Remote Filesystems

Let's face it: sometimes it's difficult to fit all of the files you need on a single computer. Whether they be Windows shares at your office, FTP servers somewhere on the Internet, or even machines on the network running SSH, you can access all of these servers and more from the Ubuntu desktop with a few clicks.
The key to connecting to remote filesystems is the "Connect to Server" dialog window. Click Places “Connect to Server” to see the default window
There are a number of different connection types the dialog supports. shows the options available from the drop-down menu. Apart from a few specific options, each of these connection types shares the same sorts of options. The top of the window requests the location of the server (a hostname or IP address), and then below that is a list of nonessential options you can configure. For instance, you can give each of your connections custom names so that they are easier to tell apart from each other.

Connecting to a Windows share is a good example of how to use the "Connect to Server" dialog. First, select "Windows share" from the drop-down menu. Then, fill in the name of the server you want to connect to and, optionally, the name of the share you want to connect to. If your network requires authentication, you can also configure the username and domain name in this window. Once you have configured the share, click the Connect button. A new icon for this share will then appear on your desktop. Double-click that icon to open the Nautilus file browser to that share.

If you aren't quite sure about the settings for your Windows share, you can also click Browse Network to search the local network for any available Windows shares.

One of the more interesting abilities of the "Connect to Server" dialog is to connect to remote SSH servers and share files over SFTP. Not only does this mean that you don't have to configure any special file sharing on the remote machine, but any machine that runs SSH is now also a file share you can access. What's more, all of the communication is sent over an encrypted channel.
To connect to a remote SSH server, select SSH from the "Service type" drop-down menu. you can see a sample window filled out with information to connect to a server on the network. By default, the SSH connection will open into the / directory, but you can change that to any directory you wish in the Folder field. If you needed to connect to the remote server as a different user, you could also specify that in this window. Finally, you can give this share a custom name that will appear both on its icon in the desktop and in the sidebar of the file browser.
Once you click Connect, a new icon appears on the desktop, and if you double-click it, you can access all of the photos on the remote server.. You can then drag and drop them to and from the local machine as you do with any other directory
If you decide that you no longer want to access a particular share, just right-click on its icon on the desktop and select Unmount Volume. Otherwise, file shares will appear both in the sidebar of your file manager and in the Places Network Servers window.