Fedora BitTorrent Notes
=======================

Known Bugs
==========

 1. Translations are broken (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/237254)
    This appears to be a python 2.5 compatibility issue

 2. BitTorrent doesn't die gracefully (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/189072)
    Fastresume data isn't saved if the client is killed (e.g. as a result
    of logging out without closing down the application cleanly).

 3. Newer versions are available

    The 6.x BitTorrent client is closed source and cannot be included in
    Fedora

    The 5.x BitTorrent client has a GUI that is incompatible with
    wxPython > 2.6 as used in Fedora 7 onwards
    (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/223623)

Seeding and Tracking
====================

BitTorrent seed and tracking functionality is essentially a service like a
web server, and so initscripts are provided to launch these services at
system startup. They run as the unprivileged user "torrent" though the
scripts are started as root.

Creating a Torrent and Tracker Setup
====================================

1. Copy the file or directory you want to create a torrent for into the
   /var/lib/bittorrent/data/ directory.

2. Make the torrent file; let's say you want to serve out the contents of
   the /var/lib/bittorrent/data/mydata directory, and you'll be using a
   tracker URL of http://myhostname.example.com:6969/announce :

   # cd /var/lib/bittorrent/data
   # maketorrent-console http://myhostname.example.com:6969/announce mydata

   That should create /var/lib/bittorrent/data/mydata.torrent

   It's not necessary for the ownership of the files in the
   /var/lib/bittorrent/data directory to be changed from root or whatever user
   created them, as the tracker and seeder only need to be able to read them,
   not write to them.

3. You can then start your tracker, which will track for all torrent files
   in the /var/lib/bittorrent/data directory.

   # /sbin/service bttrack start

   You can point a browser at http://myhostname.example.com:6969/ to verify
   that the tracker is working.

   If you want the tracker to start up when the system boots up, do:

   # /sbin/chkconfig bttrack on

Starting a Seed Client
======================

If you want to start a seeder for torrents you created yourself as described
above, all you need to do is to start the btseed service, which seeds for all
torrents in the /var/lib/bittorrent/data directory:

  # /sbin/service btseed start

If you want the seeder to start up when the system boots up, do:

  # /sbin/chkconfig btseed on

If you want to act as a seed for a torrent file you've downloaded from
somewhere else and you haven't downloaded the content yet, simply copy the
downloaded torrent file into the /var/lib/bittorrent/data directory and
start the btseed service (as above) if it is not already running. The
btseed service will download the content into the /var/lib/bittorrent/data
directory and then start seeding it.

If you have already downloaded the content for a torrent and now want to seed
it, copy the downloaded content into the /var/lib/bittorrent/data directory,
then copy the torrent file into the /var/lib/bittorrent/data directory and then
start the btseed service (as above) if it is not already running.

Stopping the Services
=====================

# /sbin/service btseed stop
# /sbin/service bttrack stop

If you no longer want the services to start up at system boot time:

# /sbin/chkconfig btseed off
# /sbin/chkconfig bttrack off

Log Files
=========

The seeder and tracker services create log files in the /var/log/bittorrent
directory. Note that the seed client buffers output and so the data written
to the log files may not actually be written to disk (and hence be read by
anyone) for some considerable time.