utorrent on ubuntu 10.10

[zozo]

Hello,

I've been using utorrent on windows for a while now, and I like it very much. Now, that I installed ubuntu, I want to keep using it. I downloaded the utorrent server for linux (µTorrent Server alpha (3.0 build 22708)). Now, please forgive me, cos I am totally new with this ubuntu thing (looks nice so far), but how do I actually use utorrent now? I managed to run the server and connect to it using the web UI. what now? how do I instruct it to handle torrent files?

sorry for being such a newbie

Thanks,

Zohar.

[lithopsian]

The Linux alpha server is just that, a server. There is no client that you will be used to from windows. One option is to try running the windows versions under Wine.

If you still want to try the Linux native server, you should have an archive of some sort with some files inside it. One of them is utserver, which is the uTorrent server binary. 32-bit. I hope you don't have a 64-bit Ubuntu? You can just run utserver, probably in the background (utserver&) and it will do stuff.

You can control it using an interface from a web browser. Another of the files inside the archive you downloaded is webui.zip. The default location is in the same directory as you ran utserver from. In your browers enter your local ip address and port followed by /gui/, for example http://192.168.0.4:8080/gui/. You should be prompted for a username and password, which by default is admin and blank. Fingers crossed, an interface very similar to the one you are used to will appear in your browser. It has options for adding files and URLs although a little clunky.

Now that you have a little confidence, you can set utserver to run with a configuration file and a settings path, so that you can change the port, admin password, torrent directory, and stuff like that. A standard Ubuntu setup would have the utserver binary in /opt/uTorrent, /usr/bin, or perhaps even ~/bin, and you could perhaps start it from your desktop startup script. Settings and configuration files would go somewhere like ~/.utorrent. You can keep your torrents under your home directory or wherevere else you keep your data, ideally on a separate partition from Ubuntu so you can keep the data whenever you change your Linux.

One day there will be a Linux client. Until then there are several Firefox addons that can help you control the server, and also a set of Python scripts that will give you command line controls. Look in the Linux forums here.

[zozo]

Thanks for the prompt and detailed reply.

I managed to run the server OK, and also managed to connect to it using the web UI (on port 8080).

My server is in ~/bittorent-server-v3_0, soI created a new folder called 'torrents' and now I have the following config file:

dir_autoload: torrents
dir_root: ~/bittorent-server-v3_0

I invoke the server with

-configfile utserver.conf

But when I place torrent files in the torrents folder nothing happens... I expected them to be "picked up" and processed.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,

Zohar

[lithopsian]

Some things to try:

Specify a full path to utserver.conf otherwise it is relative to where you execute the command from.

Try a full path instead of ~.

You could also try a full path for dir_autoload instead of relative to dir_root.

I haven't played around with the configuration file a lot, but I have absolute paths in mine and that works.

[zozo]

thanks.

I've tried using absolute paths, but it didn't help. Am i using the right config directives?

I'd really like to see a torrent being downloaded already...

[lithopsian]

Try the button at top left in your web interface Then at least you can see if it works.

Then go into your uTorrent preferences and look on the Directories tab. At the bottom is a setting for "Automatically load .torrents from".

[zozo]

"uTorrent preferences"? where?

[lithopsian]

Click on the little cogwheel in your browser webui. Lots of good stuff in there

[zozo]

seen it before, but i forgot about it... (shameful smiley here).

is there any way to configure an RSS downloader?

and thanks again...

[lithopsian]

Sorry, I haven't used the RSS feeds with this server The functionality is there, I just don't know whether or how it works through the webui interface.

On the plus side, my Firefox extension now supports one-click sending of magnet links and torrents to utserver without having to open the webui:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/244867/