The end game is to install x2go on a Debian 5 (lenny) container, without having host node control.
The problem is with "hotplug" (apparently it's a fuse component). When running "aptitude install fuse-utils sshfs", this is the error:
udev active, skipping device node creation.
udev requires hotplug support, not started. failed!
failed!
That particular error seems to trigger due to absence of the file /sys/kernel/uevent_helper.
The openvz wiki for FUSE suggests that getting fuse installed is a simple matter of running: "modprobe --first-time fuse" before installing sshfs. However, there is no fuse module in /lib/modules/2.6.18-194.../.