# questions about torrent software



## wonslung (Jun 14, 2009)

Does anyone have any experience with rtorrent or maybe even utorrent under wine with freebsd?

I'm interested in a setup that would allow multiple users.  I've installed rtorrent+wtorrent before on linux but never for multiple users.  I am familiar with torrentflux and torrentflux-b4rt but i can't help but feel like there is a better option.  torrentflux has a great web interface but it doesn't scale very well in my experience
thanks


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## SirDice (Jun 15, 2009)

Why run them under wine? There are native fbsd torrent clients.

I use mldonkey, which can also download torrents. There's an mldonkey-core you can run without a gui. Use something like sancho to control it. You can create multiple accounts in mldonkey but I've never used multiple accounts.


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 15, 2009)

rtorrent is not multi-user in itself. It doesn't have or handle accounts. You can, however, have different rtorrent instances for different users, each using their own .rtorrent.rc. The only thing you need to change are the port rtorrent binds to (one port is enough), its DHT port, and, for rtgui/web interface stuff, the port where scgi_port sends its updates to. There is (afaik) no way to administer these rtorrent sessions from an admin point-of-view.


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## wonslung (Jun 15, 2009)

yah, but you can set global settings in each .rtorrentrc right?

also, does anyone have a rc.d script that uses screen to start multiple rtorrent sessions?  I had one for ubuntu awhile back but i have no clue how to convert it.


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 15, 2009)

You could add the startup to each user's crontab, with @reboot as the time.

Something like:


```
@reboot     /usr/local/bin/screen /usr/local/bin/rtorrent
```

should do it.


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## SirDice (Jun 15, 2009)

I think it's easier to use mldonkey. That has support for multiple users. You just need to add them using the useradd command in mldonkey.


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 15, 2009)

Looks rather hefty on the dependency side .. GTK and such. And if you only need (or allow) bittorrent, it's a bit much. Anyway


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## tangram (Jun 15, 2009)

MLDonkey doesn't require GTK dependencies if you install it without GUI. Also it's very flexible as you can use it for torrent, ed2k networks, http download and so on.

I've posted an HOWTO: Install and setup MLDonkey on FreeBSD under the Howtos & FAQs section of the forum.


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## SirDice (Jun 15, 2009)

mldonkey-core doesn't need GTK. It does need OCAML if you build from source though.


```
root@molly:~#pkg_info -rx mldonkey-core
Information for mldonkey-core-3.0.0:

Depends on:
Dependency: png-1.2.35
Dependency: jpeg-6b_7
Dependency: pkg-config-0.23_1
Dependency: freetype2-2.3.9_1
Dependency: gd-2.0.35,1
Dependency: libiconv-1.11_1
```


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## wonslung (Jun 15, 2009)

does it have a webgui


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## SirDice (Jun 15, 2009)

Yes, and you can also use sancho as a GUI.


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## tangram (Jun 15, 2009)

wonslung said:
			
		

> does it have a webgui



Yeah just point your browser to http://localhost:4080/ or replace the localhost part with the IP or name of the computer.

Personally I only use the webserver but have a look at sancho as SirDice recommended.


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## phoenix (Jun 15, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Why run them under wine? There are native fbsd torrent clients.



At least on my system, I get *much* better download speeds using uTorrent under WINE than I do using native ktorrent.  I can sustain 240 KBytes/sec using uTorrent, while ktorrent is lucky to get 10-15 KBytes/sec, for the same .torrent file.  No idea why.  Same config setup (ports, limits, etc) used in both.

I've tried a few other QT-based torrent apps, and they also have low download speeds.  Didn't try any of the other torrent apps, as I try to avoid GTK apps as much as possible, and never liked using console apps for things like this.

Very strange indeed.


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## SirDice (Jun 15, 2009)

phoenix said:
			
		

> At least on my system, I get *much* better download speeds using uTorrent under WINE than I do using native ktorrent.  I can sustain 240 KBytes/sec using uTorrent, while ktorrent is lucky to get 10-15 KBytes/sec, for the same .torrent file.  No idea why.  Same config setup (ports, limits, etc) used in both.


10 to 1 chance.. Are you behind a router? Does that router support UPnP? If so, uTorrent uses UPnP to dynamically open a few ports.

Configure your torrent client to always use the same ports. Open and forward those ports on your router. Odds are your speeds will dramatically increase.

Nothing strange about it, it's just the way the torrent network works. UPnP just makes it 'automagically' work.

I've opened the ports myself and I regularly get 1024KB/s download speeds with mldonkey.


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## wonslung (Jun 15, 2009)

i'm looking to do a multiple user situation though, so whatever i end up with i need to be able to allow 10 or so people to use it.


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## phoenix (Jun 15, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> 10 to 1 chance.. Are you behind a router?



Yes.



> Does that router support UPnP? If so, uTorrent uses UPnP to dynamically open a few ports.



Yes, but I disable it, as I have nothing that uses UPnP beyond the router.



> Configure your torrent client to always use the same ports. Open and forward those ports on your router. Odds are your speeds will dramatically increase.



Nope, that's the exact setup that I use.  Nothing is dynamic (even my DHCP setup uses statically assigned IPs using MAC addresses) in my network.



> Nothing strange about it, it's just the way the torrent network works. UPnP just makes it 'automagically' work.
> 
> I've opened the ports myself and I regularly get 1024KB/s download speeds with mldonkey.



How bizarre.  Like I said, it could just be my system.    Using uTorrent on Windows XP I can get great download speeds.  Using uTorrent via WINE on FreeBSD 7.1 I get great download speeds.  Using anything else, I get horrible download speeds.


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## wonslung (Jun 15, 2009)

as far as speed goes it's likely due to how the client makes connections. utorrent is pretty aggressive in finding connections and keeping good ones.

I've found both transmission and rtorrent to be good as well when it comes to speed.

bittornado isn't bad either.


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