J_K9 @ Linux

HOW TO: Setup a Web-based BitTorrent Client

October 25, 2007 on 1:45 am | In Linux, HOW TO, Software |

How many times have you been stuck at work when the latest episode of a podcast such as LugRadio has become available for download, or the latest version of your favourite Linux distribution has been released? Wouldn’t it be really useful if you could access a server at home through your web browser and order it to download that file, so that it’s waiting for you when you get there? Or, if you like to sleep in peace with your desktop off, wouldn’t it be great if you could remotely access a BitTorrent client on the home server in your attic and tell it to run the downloads while you sleep?

The simple answer? Yes, it would: and I’m going to show you exactly how to set it up.

First of all, you will need to install a Linux server distribution on a spare computer in the house. If you don’t have one lying around, you should be able to get your hands on an old one off eBay or similar for a fairly low price. I will be using Ubuntu 7.10 Server Edition in this tutorial because it is, in my opinion, the easiest to set up.

When installing Ubuntu 7.10 Server, you must as an absolute requirement install the “LAMP server” Task (do not forget the root password for the MySQL server which you will be asked to set!). I also installed the “OpenSSH Server” Task in order to allow me to administer the server remotely, but that is up to you. I recommend that you work on the server itself when following this tutorial; you will also need access to another computer within your home network, such as a laptop or desktop. For an in-depth HOW TO on installing Ubuntu 7.10 Server, please see the tutorial on HowToForge (but please only follow it up to the end of the Ubuntu installation – do not install the other packages!).

Once you have finished installing Ubuntu, you will be asked to remove the CD and restart the server. When the server has restarted and you have logged in using the username and password you set during the installation, please re-insert the Ubuntu 7.10 Server installation CD as it is required for the installation of some packages.

Ok, so now that the installation part is out of the way, we can work on setting up the BitTorrent client software on your new server. We will be using torrentflux-b4rt as the BitTorrent web interface and the Transmission command-line program as the BitTorrent downloader client.

Note: On Ubuntu Server, the web root directory is /var/www and the web user is www-data.

Download and install torrentflux-b4rt

The first thing we need to do is use our spare computer (the laptop or desktop, not the server) to find out the download link for the latest torrentflux-b4rt release. You can do this by browsing to torrentflux-b4rt’s homepage, clicking on “Downloads” and then selecting the latest .tar.bz2 release. Here, right-click on one of the “Download” links and select “Properties” to view the direct web address of the torrentflux-b4rt package file. Write this entire address down and take it to the server computer. At the time of writing, the URL was: http://download.berlios.de/tf-b4rt/torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta1.tar.bz2

On the server, run the following commands, remembering to replace all references to torrentflux-b4rt with the latest release version (e.g. torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta1.tar.bz2):

cd /var/www
sudo touch index.html
sudo rm -rf apache2-default
sudo wget http://download.berlios.de/tf-b4rt/torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta1.tar.bz2
sudo tar xjvf torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta1.tar.bz2

The above commands download the latest version of torrentflux-b4rt and extract it. Next, let’s configure it properly:

sudo mkdir bittorrent/
sudo mv torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta1/html/* bittorrent/
sudo chown -R www-data bittorrent/*
sudo chmod 700 bittorrent/inc/config/
sudo rm -rf torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta1/ torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta1.tar.bz2

Those commands moved the torrentflux-b4rt website files into a new directory called bittorrent/ and removed all the other files which are no longer necessary.

Next, let’s create the directory where the BitTorrent client will save all the downloads (the /home/torrentflux directory):

sudo mkdir /home/torrentflux
sudo chown www-data /home/torrentflux/

Now let’s install all of the other tools which torrentflux-b4rt needs to run:

sudo apt-get install php5-cli
sudo apt-get install unzip
sudo apt-get install cksfv
sudo apt-get install unrar
sudo apt-get install transmission-cli

Ok, now that we have finished installing torrentflux-b4rt and its dependencies, it’s time to move back to the spare computer and finish setting it up. But before you do that, run one last command to find out what your server’s IP address (assuming that it is properly connected to a Local Area Network):

ifconfig

Make sure you write down the server’s IP address! It will probably be in the form 192.168.1.x, 10.0.x.x or something similar. Mine was 192.168.1.7, which I will use throughout the rest of the tutorial (please remember to replace this with your server’s IP address!).

Finalising the torrentflux-b4rt installation

Now we need to configure torrentflux-b4rt to use the MySQL server properly and make some configuration changes. To do so, move to your spare computer, open a web browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer and enter ‘http://’ followed by your server’s IP address and then by ‘/bittorrent/setup.php’. For example, I entered http://192.168.1.7/bittorrent/setup.php into my browser, but your URL will probably be different.

Once you arrive at the setup script, continue through the pages and make the following configuration changes:

Database Type: MySQL
—
Host: localhost
Name: torrentfluxb4rt (this is the database name)
Username: root
Password: PASSWORD (change ‘PASSWORD’ to the MySQL root password which you set during Ubuntu’s installation!)
Create database: [ticked]

The rest of the installation should continue smoothly until the very end, where you may get a message saying that the setup.php file has not been deleted and torrentflux-b4rt will not work until it has been removed. If that is the case, please return to the server and enter the following command:

sudo rm -f /var/www/bittorrent/setup.php

Then, return to your spare computer and remove the ’setup.php’ from the end of the address bar so that you’re browsing to (in my case) http://192.168.1.7/bittorrent/. This will take you to a login page. Please note that the details which you enter the first time you log in will be the torrentflux-b4rt Administrator, so do not forget this username and password combination!

Your first login will take you to the ’server’ page of the Admin panel. There should be no more than three red dots: one for uudeview (which isn’t required), another for transmissioncli and the other for vlc, which you can install if you want torrentflux-b4rt to be able to stream audio and video downloads to you over the internet. I will not be covering this in this tutorial.

To fix the transmissioncli error, change the path to transmissioncli to /usr/bin/transmissioncli and press the ‘Update Settings’ button at the end of the page.

We just need to make some final setting changes before we can begin to use our web-based BitTorrent client, so bear with me!

Configuring torrentflux-b4rt

It is a good idea, at this point, to create a ‘normal user’ account on the server which you should access for all your downloads when you’re not at home. To do so, go to the ‘users’ tab in the Admin panel and click on the ‘create user’ link – add the username and password you desire, as usual, and press the ‘Create’ button.

Still in the Admin panel, go to the ‘transfer’ tab. Here, change the Default BitTorrent Client to Transmission and the Torrent MetaInfo Client to transmissioncli. You should also write down the Port Range (minimum port - maximum port), as you will need these values later. Once again, use the button at the end of the page to save these changes.

If you are behind a broadband wired or wireless router, please continue to the following section.

Setting up port forwarding

In order to get downloads working, you will need to forward the ports for the Port Range which you wrote down from your home router to your server. To do so, go back to your spare laptop and open your web browser. Find your router in the list of routers on PortForward.com and follow their guide, remembering to use the Port Range and the internal IP address of your server, both of which you have written down!

Test it out!

Now all that is left for you to do is to test it out! On the spare computer, navigate to your equivalent of http://192.168.1.7/bittorrent and, if you are still logged in, go to the ‘Home’ panel. From this page, use the form to upload a torrent file to the server (you can download a torrent file for a Linux distribution ISO from LinuxTracker) and watch it download (click on the ‘Turn on AJAX-Update’ link at the bottom of the page for live updates)!

Problems?

Is it not downloading? Is the progress bar not moving at all, even after waiting for 10 minutes? That either means that there are not seeders for that torrent file—in which case you should find another torrent file to test the server with—or there is a problem with the system. And, indeed, there was a problem with mine – torrentflux-b4rt was passing too many command-line options to the transmissioncli download program, causing it to quit with an error. The reason behind this is that torrentflux-b4rt distributes its own version of transmission which includes modifications to improve the functionality and communication between the applications. Installing torrentflux-b4rt’s own version of transmission will greatly increase the usefulness of this server and is strongly recommended if you know how to compile applications from their source code; if you do, please find the modified transmission client in torrentflux-b4rt’s SVN repository. Or, if you have no idea what I just said, please read on.

Please note that I created this fix myself and it is not condoned or supported by the torrentflux-b4rt team; it works on my system, and I am offering it to you because it should fix the problem caused by using the “vanilla” distribution of transmission, as in your distribution’s software repositories. To use my fix, return to the server and enter the following commands:

cd /var/www/bittorrent/inc/classes
sudo wget http://wolphination.com/linux/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/clienthandlertransmissionphp.txt
sudo mv clienthandlertransmissionphp.txt ClientHandler.transmission.php

Now, go back to the spare computer, click on the torrent name, go to the ‘Control’ tab and press the ‘Restart Transfer’ button. The torrent should now download without a problem.

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39 Comments »

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hey, nice tutorial! too bad I don’t have a use for it…

Comment by titanium_geek — October 25, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Mac OS X
Hey - thanks, Alison! There’s always Azureus’ web UI on OS X, but I didn’t have much luck with that (and it’s not as powerful as torrentflux-b4rt).

Comment by J_K9 — October 25, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Bah, why bother? Ktorrent has web interface plugin that works out-of-box

Comment by Voker57 — October 25, 2007 #
Using Konqueror 3.5 on Linux
Ah, yes, but does it have these advanced features - multiple users, the ability to search for torrents from the web application (huge advantage when in a restricted environment in which you cannot download .torrent files or access torrent sites directly), detailed activity meters and logs, AJAX support and much, much more?

Azureus also has a web interface but, as I said, I never had much luck with that. I’ll have to try ktorrent’s.

Comment by J_K9 — October 25, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Another option for those inclined would be to use SSH + screen + rtorrent. More of a technical solution, but it works great.

Comment by Eric — October 25, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Windows XP
It’s ubuntu specific. Not much of my interest. And Azureus has this feature long ago.

Comment by Arijit, from India — October 26, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Windows XP
Rtorrent also has a nice webui.
I have used torrentflux b4rt, and belive me. If youre a geek rtorrent will rock your boat.

I am currently seeding 200 torrents and have 0.01 load.

Beat that mr bill gates.

Comment by Magnus — October 26, 2007 #
Using Opera 9.21 on Windows XP
There is something to be said about the security implications of this setup, making such a webserver accessible from the public internet should be done with caution, such servers are sought-out targets for hackers because they can be very useful to host things such as phishing websites.
With the AJAX site on, the server could even be “useful” for CSRF attacks.
At the very least the server should be properly fire-walled with all non-mandatory ports filtered and be put on a separate network segment (DMZ) to prevent it from accessing the rest of the home network.
Cautious users will also take the time to setup security countermeasures such as TripWire and Logwatch and regularly monitor the server logs.

Comment by Barak — October 26, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Arijit: It is Ubuntu-specific, but for any other Linux just install the software using *its* package manager (or compile it manually) and perhaps change the default Apache2 user. I can’t possibly make a tutorial that suits every distribution and package manager out there

Barak: That is assuming that you have an account on the web app or can break in in the first place. However, the same could be said of any other web-facing service: what if the service suffers from a buffer overflow, a code injection attack, etc? I agree with securing the server and placing it in the DMZ, but the chances of a hacker attacking your server are *very* slim considering that there are plenty more fish in the sea which are much easier to compromise.

Comment by J_K9 — October 26, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
TorrentFlux is a great program.

I just wish it had a module for doing SafePeer or torrent block listing. (It’s the only thing that’s keeping me on Azureus.)

Comment by Allen — October 26, 2007 #
Using Opera 9.20 on Linux
>”However, the same could be said of any other
> web-facing service”

Indeed, I believe a home network is not the right place to rum web services from.

> “but the chances of a hacker attacking your
> server are *very* slim”

This is where I disagree, hackers are very much automated now days (just take a look at your firewall/ssh logs!), and I believe that a LAMP machine is worthy enough of a prize to justify some effort, then again I may be paranoid…

Arijit: You can even run it on your beloved Windows with something like Apache2Triad

To all you “Azureus can do this” touters, the point is that this runs as a _service_ in the background without you having to keep a desktop session running.

Comment by Barak — October 26, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Barak: I completely agree – a home network is definitely not the right place to run a public web service. However, as long as the server’s location is kept fairly private there should be few problems.
Of course, automated scans may well pick up the web server, but these scans will be searching specifically for vulnerabilities. As long as torrentflux-b4rt is secured against XSS/CSRF/SQL injection and the other host of code injection techniques (which it is), and the Apache server is kept up-to-date and fully patched, there should be no complications. As I said, hackers will almost always pick the lowest-hanging fruit as targets, so as long as your set-up is secure the risk of being compromised is greatly reduced, although nothing’s impossible (well..).

Comment by J_K9 — October 27, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
[…] J_K9 @ Linux » HOW TO: Setup a Web-based BitTorrent Client (tags: bittorrent client web based) […]

Pingback by links for 2007-10-27 « Stand on the shoulders of giants — October 27, 2007 #
Using WordPress MU
[…] Azureus with web interface plug-in as my current method of accessing downloads remotely, here is another way of doing it but by using Transmission, another BitTorrent client. [image from Transmission […]

Pingback by DCS Blog Network » Blog Archive » Another way to remotely control your BitTorrent downloads — October 28, 2007 #
Using WordPress 2.3
Is there a mirror for torrentflux-b4rt? because the site seems to be down

Comment by MadJawa — October 28, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows Vista
Nevermind, I found the svn repository : svn://svn.berlios.de/tf-b4rt/trunk/
(and it says that I’m using firefox 2.0.0.3 on Vista but I’m running 2.0.0.8 on XP!)

Comment by MadJawa — October 28, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows Vista
Great tutorial, thanks. I have the same problem at the end with transmission-cli. And until today I can’t get your suggested fix to work. Is the problem occuring with all hardware setups with Gutsy Server or just a few hardware setups?

Comment by accel — November 2, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9 on Windows XP
This is due to the options passed to transmission-cli by torrentflux-b4rt. I think it is because Ubuntu’s version of transmission-cli is older than the latest release, so torrentflux-b4rt is sending it parameters which have only been implemented in later versions of transmission.

Did using my patched file work?

Comment by J_K9 — November 8, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Disclosure: I am a developer on the Torrentflux-b4rt (tfb) project.

Great tutorial, many thanks for that!

Important note though:
As you have found out you cannot use the vanilla transmission client with tfb. Attempting to use the vanilla client with tfb will result in errors because the number of arguments passed to the default client by tfb is more than it expects.

A specially modified version of transmission is bundled with the tfb distro tarball. Once installed, this modified client will interact with tfb to provide additional functionality like maintaining bandwidth transfer totals, allowing correct process control via the web gui and so on.

The bundled transmission client can be found in the ‘clients/transmission’ directory of the tarball. The latest modified versions of transmission can also be found in the tfb SVN repository online:

http://svn.berlios.de/wsvn/tf-b4rt/branches/clients/transmission/?rev=0&sc=0

However please do read the tfb forum thread here before attempting to install and use the latest SVN version:

https://tf-b4rt.berlios.de/forum/index.php/topic,749.0.html
(regarding development of tfb transmission 0.9x)

Installation instructions for building and installing the bundled transmission client are included in the distro tarball - basically the usual ‘make && make install’ routine on linux.

With respect - could you please not distribute the modified transmission client handler script you have created. The client handler script included in the tfb distro is designed to work with the modified transmission client. For full functionality please install and use the modified transmission client!

Please do drop by the forum though and feel free to help out there if you can, all help is much appreciated (is very lacking sadly)!

Again though many thanks for an excellent article.

Comment by munk — November 13, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9 on Windows XP
Hello munk,

Thank you for your comment! I wasn’t aware that a custom version of transmission was packaged with the tfb tarball. However, I do have one question - why have you not sent your patches, which quite clearly improve the command-line client and extend its functionality, to transmission’s developers? That would allow the improved transmission binaries to enter distribution repositories and make the installation of tfb much easier.

Compiling a custom application from source makes managing installed applications and services more difficult for the average user or enthusiast administrator, which is why I chose to use the vanilla transmission client distributed via Ubuntu’s repositories in this case. With all due respect, it is much easier to patch a PHP file than to compile a program from source and to then manage its installation, and so I will continue to offer my patch file to those users who wish to use it.

I do, however, hope that your patches to the transmission client are soon accepted upstream so that I can remove the patch and users of torrentflux-b4rt, including myself, will be able to benefit from the increased functionality with ease.

Comment by J_K9 — November 13, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
Firstly please bear in mind that I do not play any part in the modification of transmission for compatibility with tfb. The best place to discuss this is on the tfb forum.

Why have you not sent your patches, which quite clearly improve the command-line client and extend its functionality, to transmission’s developers?

The modifications that are required to make transmission compatible with tfb would be redundant in the original transmission client.

The transmission modifications include code to indicate which tfb user owns a transfer, at what ratio the transfer should die, polling code to check for new commands to execute (stop/start/restart), writing of pid files and most importantly the updating of stat files. The majority of these things are specific to tfb and have no place in the original transmission codebase.

Without the modified transmission client mods you won’t be able to see the status of the transmission transfers in tfb’s frontend and you won’t be able to send commands to it to control it (start/stop/restart). There are other subtleties that also will not work properly - for example sharekill ratios won’t work.

Basically by using the plain vanilla version of tfb you will be missing out on a lot of the functionality that makes tfb … well … useful!

I appreciate completely what you’re saying regards ease of software management. As a FreeBSD user there are a number of occasions when I’ve opted for an alternative software solution to a problem simply because my first choice didn’t have a FreeBSD port available. Keeping that software up to date would mean me having to manually keep a check on when new releases of the software came out which is a royal PITA for even just a handful of applications.

However I would urge you to please not distribute your patched handler because of the massively reduced functionality it implies and the support requests it will generate. Please come by the forum if you want to talk about this any more and help the community.

Comment by munk — November 13, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9 on Windows XP
Bleh @ no edit feature to these comments…

Do as you will regards distributing the patch… just please be aware that tfb will not function correctly without the modified client!!!

Cheers

Comment by munk — November 13, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9 on Windows XP
Thanks for the great tutorial. I agree with you completely, it is very “sneaky” (for lack of a better word) to require a “special build” of a 3rd party app. I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels before realizing that I had to build transmission specially.

At the very least, there should be a config option for this, “vanilla” and “special” so that the correct one works. Of course the best route as you mention is for the devs to work with the transmission folks to get those patches included.

Anyhoo, hopefully I’m close to getting this thing to finally work! Thanks again for the info…

Comment by toby — November 14, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9 on Windows XP
I agree completely.
Great work on the app.
Thanks for the clarification munik.
But yes I too spent ages banging my head on the wall before RTFM and realising that I needed to build my own version of transmission! So heading off to do that now

Comment by Johann Lo — November 15, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9 on Windows XP
Hi munk,

Thank you for taking the time to explain the situation! I’ve included a suggestion to install the modified transmission client for the more advanced users, but I think it’s best for new users to stick to the vanilla distribution of transmission—resolving dependencies can be a real pain, especially if you’re a Linux command line virgin.

Thanks again!

Comment by J_K9 — November 18, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Ubuntu Linux
No offence but what a waste of time
just do a
sudo apt-get install torrentflux
and your done
unless the apt verison is older or something but you could use it as a base and upgrade from there which shouldt be too hard

ss always check apt repos for software

Comment by Dan — December 10, 2007 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Ubuntu Linux
Dan - torrentflux-b4rt is a more powerful version of torrentflux, and it’s much easier to grab the latest version than to install the version from the apt repository and then update that manually. That’s almost a recipe for disaster.

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Extremely nice tutorial if you have a linux box with no GUI.

thx

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I just wanted to tell you that as a new linux user,I really really want to say thank you for the time you spent on this torrentflux install. Thank you so much .

I tried to use your “vanilla” distribution of transmission. but it seemed that it did not help.. well anyway . I see some people in the form at not happy and say why use this. use ktorrent.. well I want to say that for me this is the best and most working form on how too I have ever used.. thank you again for your time and trying to help people out.. really nice of you . thanks again .. it set up perfect with out problem and the only problem I h ave is I guess that I can not down load with transmission.. but that is another problem. so thanks for your time and being so so so clear..

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