Install libfuse with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• fusermount3
• mount.fuse3

Project history

The libfuse README describes FUSE as two pieces: the kernel module maintained in the regular Linux kernel repositories and the libfuse userspace library maintained in the libfuse repository. The same README describes high-level synchronous and low-level asynchronous APIs, mount and unmount helpers, request handling, and response functions.

The repository history reaches back to an imported-sources commit dated 2001-10-23. Its kernel interface header carries copyright notices for Miklos Szeredi from 2001 onward, and the project changelog for FUSE 2.9.5 on 2016-01-14 thanks Szeredi while naming Nikolaus Rath as the new maintainer. libfuse 3.x later moved packaging and development toward Meson/Ninja and the fuse3 command set.

Adoption history

FUSE became a central Linux packaging dependency because it let SSH, archive, cloud, virtual, encrypted, and application-specific filesystems ship as ordinary user-space programs. The README states that libfuse is shipped by all major Linux distributions and has been in production use across a wide range of systems for many years.

How it is used

A FUSE filesystem normally links against libfuse, mounts a userspace daemon, receives kernel requests through callbacks, and sends replies through the library. The package also provides fusermount3 and mount.fuse3 for mounting user filesystems with controlled privilege boundaries.

Why package nerds care

libfuse is one of the packages that changed what a filesystem package can be: a userspace daemon, not a kernel module. Its formulae are unusually sensitive to Linux-only behavior, setuid helpers, /etc/fuse.conf policy, kernel ABI expectations, and the split between older FUSE 2 consumers and newer FUSE 3 consumers.

Timeline

• 2001-10-23: GitHub commit metadata records the imported-sources commit later tagged start.
• 2016-01-14: The changelog records FUSE 2.9.5 and the maintainer change to Nikolaus Rath.
• 2017-09-12: The changelog records libfuse 3.2.0 dropping autotools build support.
• 2026-03-18: GitHub release metadata records fuse-3.18.2.

Related projects

• The Linux kernel FUSE module is the kernel-side peer of libfuse.
• macFUSE is the macOS-oriented related project named by the libfuse README for macOS users.
• SSHFS and many other userspace filesystems are built on the FUSE model.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/libfuse/libfuse/commits/bc22e7bec727bc72d91a3001fbda976f1adf352d
• https://api.github.com/repos/libfuse/libfuse/releases?per_page=100
• https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse
• https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse/blob/master/ChangeLog.rst
• https://libfuse.github.io/doxygen/