Bittorrent
From Wsms
Contents |
bittorrent
Bittorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing utility. It is commonly used to distribute isos for Linux installation CDs. There are bittorrent clients available for most operating systems.
Download files with bittorrent is a two-step process. First you download a .torrent file, usually with a web browser. Then you run a bittorrent client.
Under fedora, the bittorrent clients are in the bittorrent rpm. The command to start a client might look like this:
[ggeller@arthur centos]$ bittorrent-curses --max_upload_rate 20 CentOS-5.0-i386-bin-1to6.torrent
- --max_upload_rate limits the upload rate to the specified value in kB.
This is what it looks like in action:
opening ports
Bittorrent works best if you open TCP and UDP on ports 6881.
other bittorrent clients
azureus is a popular client. It has a log of features and a nice gui interface.
webseed
There are a bunch of extensions to the basic bittorrent protocol. Webseeding allows the clients to download from a regular web server as well as the other bittorrent clients.
hint
If you see an error like this:
[22:05:57] Problem connecting to tracker - <urlopen error unknown url type: udp>
You may be able to correct it by opening the .torrent file with an editor like emacs and changing the udp to an http. A superior remedy is to use a client, such as azureus, that supports the .torrent file as it stands.
