jpkotta
February 27th, 2006, 09:23 PM
Theory:
If you don't know the basics of BitTorrent (http://www.bittorrent.com/), look at the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent). The parts that are relevant for us are three things: the tracker, the .torrent file, and the client.
The client is what most people are familiar with. I use BitTornado (http://www.bittornado.com/) myself. The client uses a .torrent file to talk to other clients and down/upload data from/to them. The .torrent file is more or less a list of files to get and integrity checks for them to prevent data corruption. The tracker is a server that acts as an intermediary for the clients. You must have a tracker, or the clients won't find each other. Fortunately, there are many free trackers out there. If you have a stable internet connection (i.e. nearly always up and static ip), you can be a tracker too.
Practice:
For this HowTo, I will use the Demonoid tracker. Unfortunately, it requires registration. There are several GNU/Linux applications and distributions on this tracker (as there are on most large trackers), and someone from these forums recommended it. Most of what follows will apply to any tracker.
Note: Apparently, these forums don't allow links to tracker sites, so you will have to Google for it.
One
Make a directory for the file you want to upload and put your files there.
mkdir descriptively_named_dir
mv file1 file2 ... fileN descriptively_named_dir
Two
Demonoid requires an info file to be in your torrent. You can get it from the Demonoid site, in the upload page.
mv Torrent_downloaded_from_Demonoid_com.txt descriptively_named_dir
Three
Go to the Demonoid upload page. The fields are self explanatory. You will create the .torrent file in the next step. Keep the page open, you will come back to it. Copy the tracker url, you will need it in the next step.
Four
You will need either the source from the official client, or the bittornado-gui package. Other clients have similar utilities to make the torrent. Another option is to run the command line version, btcompletedir. See the man page on how to use it.
Run the torrent maker.btmaketorrentgui
In the file field, clearly you should add descriptively_named_dir. In the tracker field, add the tracker URL from the previous step. Add a comment and hit make. You should have a .torrent file now.
Five
Upload the .torrent to Demonoid and submit the form. It should either give an error, or more hopefully, send you to a download page for the torrent you just uploaded.
Six
Download the torrent and open it with your favorite client. For BitTornado or official client: btdownloadcurses demonoid_torrent_name.torrent
Of course, you already have the files, so it should be done immediately. The tracker will take a minute or two to find your client (a seeder), and update itself to say "there is a seeder for this file". Keep the client open for as long as possible. At least 24 hours, but weeks is better. Now anyone who finds the file on the tracker can download the .torrent and start downloading from you. If your file is popular, many people will download it and seed themselves. Congratulations, you have published on the internet.
I will be glad to modify this to accomodate other trackers. I wanted to upload a torrent but had never done so. I was surprised that there was no HowTo on these forums, so I figured it out with Demonoid and wrote this up.
If you don't know the basics of BitTorrent (http://www.bittorrent.com/), look at the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent). The parts that are relevant for us are three things: the tracker, the .torrent file, and the client.
The client is what most people are familiar with. I use BitTornado (http://www.bittornado.com/) myself. The client uses a .torrent file to talk to other clients and down/upload data from/to them. The .torrent file is more or less a list of files to get and integrity checks for them to prevent data corruption. The tracker is a server that acts as an intermediary for the clients. You must have a tracker, or the clients won't find each other. Fortunately, there are many free trackers out there. If you have a stable internet connection (i.e. nearly always up and static ip), you can be a tracker too.
Practice:
For this HowTo, I will use the Demonoid tracker. Unfortunately, it requires registration. There are several GNU/Linux applications and distributions on this tracker (as there are on most large trackers), and someone from these forums recommended it. Most of what follows will apply to any tracker.
Note: Apparently, these forums don't allow links to tracker sites, so you will have to Google for it.
One
Make a directory for the file you want to upload and put your files there.
mkdir descriptively_named_dir
mv file1 file2 ... fileN descriptively_named_dir
Two
Demonoid requires an info file to be in your torrent. You can get it from the Demonoid site, in the upload page.
mv Torrent_downloaded_from_Demonoid_com.txt descriptively_named_dir
Three
Go to the Demonoid upload page. The fields are self explanatory. You will create the .torrent file in the next step. Keep the page open, you will come back to it. Copy the tracker url, you will need it in the next step.
Four
You will need either the source from the official client, or the bittornado-gui package. Other clients have similar utilities to make the torrent. Another option is to run the command line version, btcompletedir. See the man page on how to use it.
Run the torrent maker.btmaketorrentgui
In the file field, clearly you should add descriptively_named_dir. In the tracker field, add the tracker URL from the previous step. Add a comment and hit make. You should have a .torrent file now.
Five
Upload the .torrent to Demonoid and submit the form. It should either give an error, or more hopefully, send you to a download page for the torrent you just uploaded.
Six
Download the torrent and open it with your favorite client. For BitTornado or official client: btdownloadcurses demonoid_torrent_name.torrent
Of course, you already have the files, so it should be done immediately. The tracker will take a minute or two to find your client (a seeder), and update itself to say "there is a seeder for this file". Keep the client open for as long as possible. At least 24 hours, but weeks is better. Now anyone who finds the file on the tracker can download the .torrent and start downloading from you. If your file is popular, many people will download it and seed themselves. Congratulations, you have published on the internet.
I will be glad to modify this to accomodate other trackers. I wanted to upload a torrent but had never done so. I was surprised that there was no HowTo on these forums, so I figured it out with Demonoid and wrote this up.