Minimalistic BitTorrent client over NFS/Samba
Not quite AJAX
I used torrentflux for quite some time. Shipped with Debian, installed on my local home server, accessible to any box on the network over https, even if it’s interface is not exactly eye candy, it works. I just had to configure web browsers to access http://server/torrentflux/index.php?url_upload=$ each time they hit a .torrent file. But even if web interface may be powerful, user-friendly, I resent torrentflux for having me to click plenty of time (at least two times just to start a download), after having logged in.
I took a look at rTorrent. It works by looking into a directory for new .torrent then load them automatically. Wonderful. Sadly, you have to log in over SSH and then manually select over a text user interface which download you want to actually start.
I liked the idea of dragging’n'dropping .torrent in one directory. It can be done over NFS or Samba, with no additional login. I have those already set up on my server. Next step is to handle queue management with the same directory.
I came up with the idea of using a command line BitTorrent client through a script that would watch the damn NFS/Samba directory. It would :
– notice and register new .torrents dropped
– allow to forcefully pause/remove any designated torrent
– allow to forcefully pause all downloads
– warn by mail whenever a download is completed and unregister the relevant torrent
So I wrote such script so it would handle transmission daemon as shipped by debian testing. It looks for file in a given directory named after the following syntax:
– $file.torrent = torrent to be added
– $realfile.hash = torrent being processed (delete it to remove the torrent)
– $realfile.hash- = torrent paused
– $realfile.hash+ = torrent (supposedly) completed and already removed
– all- = pause all
Here’s the HOWTO:
apt-get install tranmissioncli screen
adduser torrent
echo "torrent: youruser" >> /etc/aliasessu torrent
cd ~/
mkdir watch download
exitmkdir -p /server
ln -s /home/torrent /server
Obtain uid/gid of torrent necessary below:
cat /etc/passwd | grep torrent
Here I get 1003/1003.
Edit /etc/exports to set up NFS access (this assumes your NFS server is already set up), add:
# every box on the network get rw access to rtorrent
/home/torrent/download 192.168.1.1/24(rw,sync,all_squash,anonuid=1003,anongid=1003)
/home/torrent/watch 192.168.1.1/24(rw,sync,all_squash,anonuid=1003,anongid=1003)
On each NFS client, add in /etc/fstab (you must create mount points):
server:/home/torrent/download /mnt/torrent/download nfs rw,nolock 0 0
server:/home/torrent/watch /mnt/torrent/watch nfs rw,nolock 0 0
Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf to set up Samba access (this assumes your Samba server is already set up, add:
[Download]
path = /home/torrent/download
browseable = yes
public = yes
valid users = youruser
force user = torrent
force group = torrent
writable = yes[Watch]
path = /home/torrent/watch
browseable = yes
public = yes
valid users = youruser
force user = torrent
force group = torrent
writable = yes
Restart NFS/Samba servers, mount networked file system on the clients.
Add a startup script for transmission-daemon, edit it if need be (daemon configuration is done here), fire it up:
cd /etc/init.d/
wget http://yeupou.free.fr/torrent/init.d/torrent
update-rc.d torrent defaults 80
/etc/init.d/torrent start
At any time, you can check the current daemon process with screen:
screen -r torrent
Add torrent-watch.pl in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin (anywhere in $PATH):
cd /usr/local/bin
wget http://yeupou.free.fr/torrent/torrent-watch.pl
chmod a+x torrent-watch.pl
Check that it runs properly. Drag’n'drop any .torrent in /home/torrent/watch and run:
su torrent
torrent-watch.pl
cat status
If everything is ok, add in /etc/cron.d/torrent:
* * * * * torrent cd ~/watch && /usr/local/bin/torrent-watch.pl
You’re done.
