How can I work on files on my server and keep them in sync?

I have set up a development web server using VMWare and Debian. It’s all set up fine, but I have an problem.

I need to be able to work with the files on the server, or a copy of them. But, it’s important that both sets of files are in sync. For example, in my text editor if I’m working on index.php I don’t want to have to upload with FTP each time, and I don’t want to manually keep track of what files I’ve edited etc.

Any ideas on how I can achieve this?

Answer

Besides version controlling you can achieve it with sshfs. It is basically like mounting a remote directory in your local system.

More info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSHFS

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-sshfs-to-mount-remote-file-systems-over-ssh