How to use rutorrent
• What is ruTorrent ?
=> ruTorrent is front end for the bittorrent client rTorrent, don't confuse rTorrent and ruTorrent as both are related but different entities.
rTorrent is the actual client which handles all the torrent activities (seeding/leeching) whereas ruTorrent is the middle man which shows you what rTorrent is doing in the background and allows you to communicate with rTorrent easily.
To put it simply ruTorrent is what you see when you open your ruTorrent GUI in the web browser.
• Logging into your seedbox with ruTorrent
=> When you open your seedbox url provided by Ultraseedbox in a browser it will ask for your credentials which will be supplied to you by ultraseedbox when you make a purchase.
Enter username and password in the respective fields and click OK. This should open the ruTorrent interface.
• Overview of the ruTorrent interface
=> Check out this screenshot, all the buttons will be explained in detail.
Some options will not be available or will be placed in different order/position depending upon the version/order of installed plugins.
Menu Pane
1 - Log off from current ruTorrent session
2 - Add Torrent
3 - Create Torrent
4 - Remove Torrent
5 - Start Torrent
6 - Pause Torrent
7 - Stop Torrent
8 - RSS Downloader
9 - Autodl-Irssi
10 - ruTorrent Settings
11 - URL replacement in RSS and Ratio Rules Plugin
12 - Shortcuts Info for ruTorrent
13 - Search torrents
1 - Log off from current ruTorrent session
As it says it will log you out of the current ruTorrent browser session
2 -
Add Torrent
(Shortcut to bring up the Add torrent dialog is Ctrl+O)
This button is used to pass .torrent files directly or with torrent url/Magnet link to your seedbox
There are 2 main ways to add torrent to seedbox
A] Adding torrent by uploading .torrent file
Torrent file - Click 'Browse...' to choose a .torrent file from your computer to upload. Once choosen click 'Add File' and the file will be passed to seedbox.
B] Adding torrent via torrent URL
Torrent URL - Go to any tracker browse page--> right click on the [DL] download link of the torrent you want to download --> Paste the copied URL in the Torrent URL field and click Add URL
This will work only with trackers which allow downloading .torrent files without logging in to the site.
In simple words it works if the download link contains your authkey and passkey in it. This method is easier than downloading .torrent file and then passing to seedbox.
e.g. it works with WCD, BTN, PTP
DO NOT work with IPT, TL, FTN (There is way to make this work with these sites too but you will need to enter your tracker credentials/cookies in the ruTorrent settings/Accounts section. Keep in mind seedbox ip will be recorded as logging ip by the tracker so its advised to ask for permission from tracker staff beforehand)
C] Other ways of adding torrent via FTP, RSS, Autodl-Irssi will be described in later parts of tutorial.
Options while adding torrent
Directory - Allows you to choose the path where your torrent's files will be saved . If left blank the torrents will be downloaded in default download directory. You don't need to change it unless you want to keep files in different folders.
Don't add torrent's name to path - Tick this if you want to alter the main folder name for a multifile torrent. If you tick this you need to specify other name in the Directory field
e.g. you will rarely need this option, it is useful in case of torrents with foreign/special characters in main folder/file name.
OR in case of cross seeding where different trackers have different folder name but same content.
Don't start the download automatically - Tick this to add the torrent in a stopped state.
e.g. If a lot of torrents are already downloading or if you want to check the included files/structure before starting torrent use this feature.
Fast Resume - Tick this if you already have the files and want to seed without hash checking. Always remember to specify the directory where the files are located if you want to use this feature, if directory is not mentioned this option do not work.
This option is particularly useful for
A] Cross seeding
B] Uploading torrents at trackers which require you to download .torrent file from site after uploading a torrent.
What this option does is it totally bypasses hash checking which is resource hogging process and adds the torrents in seeding state directly saving your cpu resources and time.
3 -
Creating Torrent
Select Source - Click the ... and navigate to the file/folder you want to create a torrent for --> After selecting file/folder click X.
Torrent Properties
Tracker : Enter the tracker url which is generally listed on the upload page of the tracker site. Just go to the trackers upload page -- copy the mentioned tracker url on that page -- Paste it in the tracker box
eg. its usually in the from of http://xyztracker.com:10000/passkeycharacters/announce OR http://xyztracker.com:10000/announce
Comment : Leave blank. It doesn't matter even if you write anything in this field.
Piece size : Never use the default 256KB piece size as it creates huge .torrent file which is problematic to everyone.
General guide for choosing piece size
Piece size Torrent size
1MB For torrents <500MB
2MB For torrents 500MB to 1GB
4MB For torrents 1GB to 2GB
8MB For torrents 2GB to 4GB
16MB For torrents above 4GB
Other : click both options
Start seeding - The created torrents is automatically passed to the seedbox.
Private - Adds private flag to the .torrent which is required for all private trackers.
Click create and it will start creating torrent process which will take time from few min to hours depending upon torrent size and seedbox resources.
After the process is complete click save to download the .torrent file which you will need for uploading to the tracker.
Create Torrent from the Filemanager Plugin Menu
Creating torrent from file manager menu is almost similar just with the added benefit of easy navigation to the source file/folder
Navigate to desired file/folder in file manager plugin. Select the file/folder you want to create torrent for --> Right Click --> Create --> New .torrent submenu
It will open the create torrent dialog box with the source file/folder already selected as source, fill the rest of options as mentioned above and click create.
Save the .torrent file after hashing it done.
4 -
Remove Torrent
Clicking this will remove highlighted Torrent/s from seedbox.
Keep in mind this button will remove only .torrent file but the data for that torrent will remain on the disk.
To remove torrent along with the torrent data always use
Highlight torrent/s --> Right click --> Remove and Delete Data option
5 -
Start
6 -
Pause
7 -
Stop Torrent
These buttons can be used to :-
Pause - Torrent is paused meaning only torrent is stopped, but files remain open (Open files refer to the files being still in use by rTorrent and able to read/write instantly on resuming). Use this only if you want to pause active downloading/uploading for a short time. (This works different than utorrent's pause option, in utorrent pause option only pauses active uploading/downloading whereas keeping torrent/announce/connected peers active)
Start - Starts the torrent
Stop - Stops the torrent plus closes the files associated with it.
Alternatively these options are also available by right clicking on the highlighted torrents/s.
**ruTorrent interface usage guide**
ruTorrent interface is fully customizable and you can modify everything to suit your needs.
Torrent List --> Columns
Columns are fully customizable - Right click on any column and untick any columns you don't need. Columns can be arranged in any order, to change order use left-click + Ctrl on a column and move it to the position you like and release.
Single click on any column will arrange the torrent as per that column factor, clicking again will reverse the order of torrents as per that factor.
e.g. If you click on column "Name" torrents will be listed from A-Z as per name, clicking again on "Name" will sort the torrents from Z-A as per name.
Sorting can be done by any column factor, example clicking on size will sort torrents by the data size.
Columns Explanation
• Name - The name of the torrent.
• Size - Size of the torrent data, this is the total torrent size.
• Done - Percentage of the data downloaded out of the total size of torrent.
• Downloaded - Total hashed data on disk from total torrent data size. This does not represent actual downloaded value, it only says x amount is present on disk out of total torrent data.
• Uploaded - Total Data uploaded for that torrent.
• Ratio - Ratio simply is Total Uploaded Data divided by Total actual downloaded data.
• DL - Current Download speed for that torrent.
• UL - Current Upload speed for that torrent.
• ETA - Estimated Time of Arrival. Approximate time required to download that torrent based on current download speed.
• Label - Label for that torrent.
• Peers - The number in brackets is total number of peers (Leechers+partial seeders). The number outside the bracket is number of of peers your seedbox is currently connected to.
• Seeds - The number in brackets is total number of seeders as reported by tracker. Number outside bracket is number of seeders your seedbox is currently connected to.
• Priority - Priority of torrent you have set it to (Explained below in right click options description)
• Created on - The date and time the .torrent file was created. This info is read from the .torrent file and its missing occasionally.
• Remaining - Data remaining to be downloaded out of the total size of torrent data.
• Finished - Time elapsed since the torrent was finished downloading. This is approximate value and do not take in to account crashes/restarts, so always check on tracker site for reported seeding time.
• Added - Date and Time .torrent was added to the seedbox (Time is as per the timezone set on your seedbox)
• Ratiogroup - Ratiogroup the torrent is placed in. Is blank if torrent is not placed in any ratio group.
• Channel - Speed Channel the torrent is placed in. Is blank if torrent is not under any speed channel limitation.
• Ratio/Day/Week/Month - Average ratio per day/week/month for that torrent.
• Tracker - Tracker of the torrent.
Right Click on the torrent opens a multitude of options, each option is described below.
These option can be applied to multiple torrents by selecting multiple torrents using Ctrl + Left click on torrents and then right click.
Options
• Start/Pause/Stop - Starts/Pauses/Stops the selected torrent/s.
• Force Recheck - Use this option with caution as hash checking is very time/cpu consuming process. It rehashes the torrent data, useful in cross seeding if you are not sure you have 100% data or to recheck downloaded data in case of downloading problems.
• Check for update - ###
• Add peer - This is public torrent function, does not work for private torrents.Using this you can manually add peer by IP to the torrent.
• Update Trackers - Manually updates the tracker. Useful when you upload a torrent to tracker( which do not require re-downloading of uploaded torrent), you just need to use this option after uploading to start seeding the uploaded torrent. Also useful to solve various temporary tracker errors like Timeout/could not resolve host/Http 500 etc.
• Labels --> Submenu - New label/Remove Label/And already available labels. Labelling of torrents is useful for better organising of torrents, applying ratio/speed limits based on label groups.
Use new label submenu to create a new label and assign it to the selected torrent.
Remove label to remove the already assigned label.
Choose already created label name to assign it to the selected torrent/s.
• Priority --> Submenu
A]High
B]Normal
C]Low
D]Don't Download.
Keep in mind this priority option applies to the entire torrent and is different from the priority option in "Files Tab" in right lower pane which applies to the files in a single torrent.
Basically its downloading torrents based on priority in which the started torrents will be allocated bandwidth (Approximate prioritization of bandwidth) in the order of Higher--Normal--Low
Don't download option means the selected torrent will not be downloaded and will go in partial seeding mode if started.
• Set Ratio Group - The "set ratio group" allows you to put the torrent in one of many preset ratio groups (Rules of ratiogroups described below in settings section)
• Set Channel - The "set channel" option allows you to put the torrent in one of many pre selected download/upload thottle channels (Speed set in channel settings described below)
• Remove - Same as remove button in top menu pane. Only removes the .torrent from the client leaving the downloaded torrent data on disk.
• Remove and delete data - Removes .torrent plus associated data on the disk. Always use this option to remove torrents as using only remove option will keep the data on disk occupying the space.
• Details - Opens the General tab in the "Right Lower Pane" (Details just below this section)
• Properties - Opens the Bandwidth settings which can be modified for particular torrent. Use cautiously if you know what you are doing.
• Get .torrent - Downloads the .torrent to your local computer. Useful in case you downloaded associated torrent data via sftp/https from seedbox and want to seed it from your home client (Saves the effort of searching torrent on tracker site).
• Edit torrent - Open Announce URL edit box where you can edit the announce url of the torrent.
Use with caution as malicious tweaking of announce URL's is prohibited by private trackers.
This is particularly very useful when you reset passkey at any of the private tracker. If you reset the passkey for a tracker all you need to do is Right click on the tracker name in question in the "Left Sorting Pane" (This will mass select all torrents for that tracker)-->
Click stop (To stop that tracker torrents) --> Again Right click on tracker name on left menu pane --> Edit (opens edit Announce url box)--> Delete the old passkey from the box and replace it with new Passkey --> Ok --> Right click--> Start
This saves the trouble of re-downloading all .torrents after passkey reset and the procedure can be finished in less than 2 min.
• Save to.. - It is similar to utorrent's "set download location" option where you can change the directory of the data for the torrent without interrupting seeding of the torrent.
Tick mark Move data files and Fast resume so the torrent keeps seeding from the new data directory automatically.
• Ignore scheduler - will ignore scheduler rules if any set in the settings panel.
• Unpack - For rar'ed/zipped content it can be unpacked using this option.
You can navigate and choose the directory where the unpacked files would be saved. Leaving it blank will place the unpacked files in same folder as the the rar/zip files.
**Left side torrent sorting pane**
This pane offers a variety of sorting options based on state/label/tracker and search result/rss feed options.
•• State
Downloading - Clicking on this will open torrents which are actively downloading + stopped Incomplete + partial seeding + paused incomplete + errored incomplete (In short any torrent not finished downloading 100% will be here)
Finished - All 100% finished torrents (Stopped finished + seeding torrents + errored but finished + paused finished )
Active - Torrents which are actively uploading or downloading data currently.
Inactive - torrents which are not uploading or downloading any data currently.
Error - contains all torrents which received error from the tracker.
•• Labels - Clicking on any label will list torrents with that label in the torrent list pane.
•• Search - It will list search results either from local torrents in the client or from trackers (Explained in search function)
•• Trackers - torrents can be sorted by their trackers using this , click on the tracker name to list the torrents from that tracker.
Keep in mind right clicking on any of the above listed categories from state/labels/trackers will open the usual right click options from the torrent list pane BUT the options will apply to ALL the torrents in that category. eg. If you right click on iptorrents category and click stop, it will stop ALL iptorrent torrents.
** Right Lower Pane Guide **
• General - This tab shows the general info for the torrent selected in the torrent list pane. Everything is pretty much self explanatory
Most important thing in this tab is tracker status. For the torrents with red arrow sign (Error torrent), this tracker status provides the exact cause for the error.
Most common tracker errors
A] Unregistered torrent - This is most common tracker error and the most common reason for this error is the torrent in question being deleted from the tracker site for w/e reason.
Other less common reasons for "Unregistered torrent" error are
>Recently created torrent yet to be uploaded on tracker site. It resolves after uploading the torrent to site and manually updating the tracker.
> .torrent file created with faulty versions(V3.1/V3.2) of utorrent. These torrent files do not work in rTorrent as the .torrent file itself is faulty.
B] Could not resolve host name/HTTP 500/Timeout - These are temporary tracker errors due to problems on the tracker side and usually resolve by itself after sometime.
• Files - This tab shows the files/folders for the selected torrent.
Aside from showing the file/folder structure this tab offers more options via right click.
Sub Columns in the Files tab : These columns are customizable like the torrent list columns and their order can be changed using Ctrl+Left Click. The unneeded columns can be hidden by right clicking on any of the column header and ticking off the unneeded columns.
Clicking on any column will arrange the files/folders in the order of the clicked column factor.
Sub-columns
Name - Lists names of files and folders of the selected torrent.
Size - Size of the file
Done - Size of the data downloaded out of the total file size
% - Percentage of the file/folder downloaded.
Priority - Priority of the file/folder.
Right Click on files/folders opens more options.
Priority - High/Normal/Don't download. Files will be downloaded in the order of priority and those set to don't download will not be downloaded.
Download strategy - Normal/Leading Chunk first/Trailing chunk first : This option is not much useful as such, you can alter the download priority based on chunk arrangement (Keep in mind the torrent chunks are not necessarily serially in order of files)
View -Tree/list. For folders in a torrent you can alter the listings to tree or list view. Choose what suits you best. Tree view offers better viewing experience IMO.
Get file - You can download any file off the bat right in the browser using this option. Useful to download small sample files/nfo files/Images etc. (Not desirable method for downloading big files as it causes the ruTorrent GUI timeout errors, For big files use the traditional sftp/https links)
Unpack - Right click on any rar/zip file and click unpack to open up the unpacking dialogue and unpack the files.
Mediainfo - Right click on any video file and click mediainfo to get the complete mediainfo for the file. Useful while uploading as most trackers require this info and to know the video specs.
Screenshots - Right click on any video file and click screenshots to create and save screenshots for that video.
You can view screenshots in the console and save them to your computer. (Useful for uploaders and in general to check the quality of video)
Screenshot settings (ruTorrent settings --> screenshots row)
Frame width - Keep this unticked as we need native resolution screenshots. If you tick it and specify a width, the screenshots will be resized to the specified width.
Frames count - 5 This specifies number of screenshots that should be taken from a file. eg. If you need 3 screenshots set it to 5 considering a few screens will be from bad scene/fast moving scene/etc
Start frame offset (In seconds) - This number decides at what point of the video first screenshot should be taken from, eg. setting it to 120 seconds will take the first screenshots at 2 min in the video
Set it to a number depending on the video you need to screenshot (Low for a music video file/High for a movie)
Time between frames (In seconds) - Its the time gap in video between successive screenshots. Set it to a number depending on the length of the video.
Slideshow Interval (In seconds) - Its time frame between screenshots slides switching when you use slideshow option.
Image format - JPEG/PNG Recommended to use PNG format as it is lossless image format.
• Trackers - This is only informative tab with info about the tracker, all entities are pretty much self explanatory.
Right click in this tab provides options to
Enable - To enable a tracker if it is disabled.
Disable - To disable a tracker (Do not use these two options on private trackers)
Update Trackers - Manually updates tracker (Same option as "Update trackers" options which pops up in torrent right click options)
Edit - Opens Announce URL edit dialog box (Use with caution, this is same Edit option as explained above in "Right Click Options" Section)
• Peers - This is also pretty much only informative tab, it lists the peers (Seeders+Leechers) connected to your seedbox for the selected torrent.
Sub-columns
IP - IP/resolved domain name of the connected peer.
Client - Bittorrent client and its version of the connected client. (libtorrent is name listed for rTorrent client as it is built based on libtorrent).
Country - If GeoIP plugin is installed it will show the flag and country name of the peer's location based on its IP.
Done - This is the percentage of the torrent that the connected peer has (keep in mind its peers % complete status and not your seedbox's). 100% means that peer is seeder, Anything less than 100% means that peer is either downloading the torrent or partial seeding. Once you have finished downloading 100% data and seeding torrent you will connect only to the leechers for that torrent.
Downloaded/Uploaded - Amount of data downloaded from/uploaded to that peer.
DL/UL - Current DL/UL speed to that peer.
Right click options in peers tab
Add peer - Only for public torrents
Ban/Kick/Snub - These options should not be use on private trackers as it can land you in trouble. Use only if necessary
Bans : Bans the peer IP and will not allow to connect it to your seedbox for that rTorrent session.
Kick : Kicks the peer temporarily, can connect to your seedbox after sometime.
Snub : Keeps the peer connected but ignores it and blocks all data transfer to that peer. Can be unsnubbed using right click again.
• Speed - It shows the global DL/UL speed for last 10 min in graph form and continues to write the graph in realtime. Moving the cursor over the graph line shows the exact speed at the time on graph.
• Plugins - This tab lists all the installed plugins.
Subcolumns : Like everywhere columns are fully customizable and clicking on column sorts the plugin list by that column factor.
Name - Name of the plugin
Version - Version of the plugin
Status - Loaded/Unloaded for the plugin. Disabled plugins will show status as unloaded
Launch - Enabled/Disabled. By default all plugins are enabled, you can disable the plugins that you don't need.
Author - Author of the plugin
Description - Brief description about the plugin.
Right click on a plugin opens options
Unload - It unloads the plugin in question. If a plugin is not working properly then unload it using this option and reload the ruTorrent GUI to load it again.
Launch Enable/Disable - You can disable plugins that you don't need and they will disappear from the ruTorrent GUI if disabled. Enable again from this tab if you change your mind.
eg. Chunks plugin is pretty useless for me so disabling it will disable the chunks tab and reduce the ruTorrent load time.
• File Manager - This is an excellent plugin offering multitude of options in one tab. Most importantly it offers very easy navigation through the folder/files which makes it so easy to use.
Unlike the previous listed "Right Lower Pane" tabs this tab works irrespective of the selected torrent in the torrent list pane.
Top directory path lists the current path to the open folder in the tab.
To directory path is the path to the current open directory
SubColumns - Customizable as always
Name - Name of the file/folder.
Size - Size of the file.
Time - Date and Time the folder/file was created.
Type - Type of the file(NFO,MKV,RAR,ZIP,SFV, etc.)
Permissions - Read/Write permissions for the file/folder.
The power of File Manager plugin lies in its right click options.
Open - To save the selected file, if its a folder this option will open that folder.
View - This option is available if you right click on .nfo file. It will open the nfo file in NFO viewer right in the browser.
Copy - Copy the selected file/folder to any other directory.
Move - Move file/folder to any other directory.
Delete - Deletes the selected file/folder.
Rename - To rename the file/folder.
Create - It will open submenu options under create
New .torrent - It will open create torrent dialog box with the selected file/folder as source. (Explained in detail already in create torrent section of tutorial)
New Directory - will create a new folder in the current directory.
New Archive - You can select multiple files with Ctrl+Select and use this option to create rar/zip/tar/gzip archive of the selected files.
SFV file - will create sfv file for the selected file/s (Not of much use in bittorrent as most trackers don't require sfv file)
Screenshots - will create Thumbnailed screenshot as per settings set in File-manager settings section (Keep in mind this is different than "screenshot" option in "Files" tab. This is part of filemanager whereas the other one is a standalone plugin)
Check sfv - Right click on any sfv file and use this option to verify the contents of the folder by matching it with hash in the sfv file (Not of much importance as bittorrent protocol itself uses hashing method to download data, the chance of downloading corrupt data is none unless the .torrent itself was created with corrupt data as source)
Mediainfo - Reads mediainfo for any video file and opens it in the console tab (Works similar to mediainfo option in "Files" tab)
Refresh - to refresh the current directory.
File Manager settings (Can be accessed via ruTorrent Settings-->File Manager row)
Display settings:
> Paths history number of values - 5 (Use something between 5-10). This is the number of paths which the plugin stores in memory for easy navigation to those files via path history dropdown option.
> Strip trailing slashes from the directory names - Ticking this option will hide the slash at the end of folder names (eg. Folder name : Evil.Dead.2013.DVDRip.X264-AMIABLE/ <--this is the trailing slash, with this option ticked the slash won't appear in folder listing)
> Show hidden files - Usually the system or config files might clutter the file system and Unticking this will hide those files from file explorer. Tick this if you need those files to be visible in file explorer.
> Clean console log automatically - Events like mediainfo/sfv check/archive creation are logged/performed in console tab which keeps the info until manually it is manually cleared. If you want it to clear info automatically tick this option.
> Permissions format - Choose the format of permissions to be displayed in file explore : Octat(0755) or Symbolic (-rw)
> Date Time format - Set the format of date/time according to your needs. (eg. %d-%M-%y %h:%m:%s equals to dd-mm-yyyy hh:mm:ss) Alter positions/separators according to your needs.
> Archive settings - Multi-volume format : This applies to archive creation settings when you create multi-part archives --> New-Part1.rar/New-part2.rar OR Old.r01/Old.r02
> Screenshot settings - Screen columns/rows/thumbnail width : decides number of columns/rows/Each thumbnail width (Only Applies to screenshot option in file manager tab)
• History - This is only informative tab. It lists all your torrent history.
The columns are pretty much self explanatory.
History Settings (ruTorrent settings --> History row)
Maximum number of records - Keep this value at a reasonable number (100-300). Settings it to higher value will increase rutorrent loading time as it needs to pull all those records.
Log - Addition/Deletion/Finished : Tick mark the events you want to log in the history tab.
Desktop Notifications - Does not work with firefox currently, If you use google chrome then you can use this feature. If enabled it will display log events notifications in the right lower corner of your desktop.
Autoclose notications after - 5 seconds. It is the amount of time you want the notification to be displayed on your desktop after which it will disappear itself.
• Chunks - This shows the status/availability of the chunks(Data pieces). Much of informative use only
Mode - Downloaded : Will show the download status of the chunks for the selected torrent.
Availability : Will show the availability of the chunks based on number of peers.
• Traffic - Shows traffic statistics in bar diagram. Can be used to track traffic statistics based on per day/month/year also can show traffic based on tracker/selected torrent. Clicking clear button will erase the traffic stats for the set variable (torrent/tracker/day,etc)
• Autodl-Irssi - This tab logs the events for autodl-irssi plugin. It will be described in Autodl-Irssi section
• Log - this tab logs the events for ruTorrent and it can be cleared using "Clear" button next to log tab.
10 -
ruTorrent Settings
Note : A few Options in ruTorrent settings are already set in .rtorent.rc file and changing those options via ruTorrent will be effective only for that session.
Once rTorrent is restarted those options will be reverted back to those set in .rtorrent.rc file.
Most commonly Download,Connection and Advanced settings are already set in .rtorrent.rc file and its safe to leave them untouched.
Explanation of all the settings options
Settings --> General
• Confirm when deleting torrents - If this option is ticked, it will pop up a confirmation dialogue when you try to delete a torrent.
Its advised to leave it ticked to avoid accidental deleting of torrents.
• Alternate list background colour - This options creates a different shade of alternating background colour for the torrents in the list.
• Show categories on startup - Leave it ticked. This option specifies to open the "Left side torrent sorting pane"
• Receive messages from tracker - Keep this option ticked. It allows to receive and display tracker messages.
• Ignore message about timeouts - Tick this if you are receiving too many errors "The request to rTorrent has timed out". If ticked it will ignore those errors.
• Full render of large tables and Show Table contents while scrolling - These two options do the same thing but in a different way.
Full render of large tables specifies that if a large number (More than 100) of torrents are loaded in client all will be rendered to ruTorrent on startup.
Show Table contents while scrolling - this means table contents will be rendered as you scroll through the torrent list.
• Autoswitch to "log" tab - ruTorrent automatically switches to the log tab when an event occurs (Adding torrent,Timeout error,etc). If you don't want this to happen untick this option.
• Update GUI every and Request Time-out - Leave these values to default unless you are experiencing slow GUI problems. In that case try changing these values slightly to check if it improves the problem.
• Show details on start-up - Keep this ticked. It specifies to open to the right lower torrent details and log pane.
• Date Format - Choose the date format which suits you best.
• Show effects for UI elements - This option adds animated effects for opening/closing of dialogue boxes(Add/create/properties,etc dialogue boxes)
• If rTorrent is not available try again after - keep this to default 2-3 min value.
• Language - Choose from the available local languages if you want the ruTorrent interface options in the language you want.
• Theme - Choose from the available themes that suits you best.
• Speed pop-up list - This is the speed pop up list which appears when you right click on the Bottom status bar UL/DL icons.
This is the global speed throttle option and the available speed options can be changed in this section.
The default values are from 100KB/s to 1.2MB/s and you can change them to the numbers that suit you best. ( Numbers are in KB/S)
Settings --> Downloads
These settings are already set to optimal values as per seedbox specs by Ultraseedbox in .rtorrent.rc file so don't change these values.
Other
• Check hash after download - Its safe to leave this unticked. If ticked it will check for the hash intergrity of the downloaded data after its downloaded. Hash errors are rare so its redundant and resource consuming process and will slow your speeds during the hash checking process if left ticked.
Default directory for downloads - Its default data download directory, leave it to the default set directory.
Settings --> Connection
• Open listening port - The required ports are already forwarded by Ultraseedbox so it really does'nt matter if you tick or untick this.
• Port used for incoming connections - This setting is set in .rtorrent.rc file so leave it as it is.
• Randomize port each time rtorrent starts - If ticked it will change the port to other number from above listed port range everytime rtorrent restarts. Basically it makes no difference for a seedbox as required ports are open.
• Bandwidth Limiting
Global maximum upload/download rate (kb/s): [0:Unlimited] - This setting is set to a high number, do not change this number to 0, even though 0 stands for unlimited, for the throttle plugin to work this number needs to be any non-zero number. Even if you change it to zero the rtorrent still remains at that large non-zero number so changing it in ruTorrent is pointless.
• Other Limitations - These are set to optimum values so do not change them unless you know what you are doing.
Settings --> Bittorent
Addititonal bittorent features
• Enable DHT network - Leave this unticked as private trackers do not allow DHT . This is mainly useful for public torrents.
• Peer exchange - Leave this unticked as private trackers do not allow PE . This is mainly useful for public torrents.
• UDP port to use for DHT - Leave default as we are not going to use DHT anyway.
• IP/Hostname to report to tracker - 0.0.0.0 Do not change this as it will be considered as IP spoofing and might get you in trouble at private trackers.
Settings --> Advanced
DO NOT change anything in this section of settings as they are already set to optimum values and changing them will do more harm than good.
Change them only and only if know what you are doing .
Settings --> Accounts
Caution - Your logging IP to the tracker site will be your seedbox IP and many private trackers do not allow logging to site from seedbox IP's, so consult with the tracker staff before you use this feature.
After consulting with tracker staff if they allow you can tick and eneable the said tracker in Accounts section and enter your login credentials in the respective fields.
After settings account details in this tab it will enable you to use features like
A] Adding torrents via Add URL for trackers that don't allow downloading .torrent files without logging to the tracker site eg. FTN, IPT, TL
B] Search tracker sites for torrents directly from the ruTorrent interface and download them to seedbox. (Explained in Search feature in the tutorial below)
Settings --> Autotools
Enable these tools only if you need them.
Enable "Autolabel" feature, template - (Not of much use) Tick this if you want all the torrents added via ruTorrent web GUI to be autolabelled if no label is entered manually while adding torrent.
Template - The available templates are
{DIR} - If you choose another sub directory in the default downloads directory than that subdirectory is appended as label name to the torrent.
eg. say ur default downlaod directory in .rtorrent.rc is home/ultraseebox/downloads and while adding torrent you choose home/ultraseedbox/downloads/Music as download directory than "Music" is the variable in path name and it is appended as the label name automatically.
{TRACKER}- If you use this template as autolabel, the torrent is appended with the trackers name as its label.
{NOW} - This will append date of adding torrent as label name. You can change the date format by changing the template as {NOW:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M} just change the date factors the way that suits you.
Enable "AutoMove" feature - This is an really useful feature if you want to set rsync/ftp folder synchronisation for automatic downloading of files from a certain folder. This combined with autodl tools like RSS/Autodl-Irssi is very useful.
What it does is after a torrent is finished downloading it moves the data files to another folder without interrupting seeding.
Path to finished downloads - CHoose a directory where you want to move the finished torrents data automatically.
Operation type - Move : Moves the data files from downloaded directory to the set finished directory. (This option is preferred)
Hard Link : The data files are not moved but a hard link is created in the finished directory pointing to the actual files.
Copy : The data files are COPIED to the finished directory.
Soft Link : The data files are not moved but a soft link is created in the finished directory pointing to the actual files.
Enable "Autowatch" feature - This is exactly same as rTorrent's watch directory adding torrent method. Only difference is its a network of watch directories in a base directory. It is useful to organise torrents if you add torrents to seedbox via ftp.
Path to base watch directory - This is the path to the directory which contains sub directories which you will be using as watch directories. eg . base directory home/ultraseedbox/downloads
Downloads folder contains sub directories say eg . Music, Movies, TVShow. So if i add a .torrent file to Music folder via ftp it will be automatically start downloaded and the data of that torrent will be placed in the very same Music folder and .torrent file is deleted automatically once its passed to rTorrent.
Keep in only subdirectories of base directory act as watch folders, the base directory itself is not a watch folder.
Tick start downloading automatically.
Settings --> Cookies
Here you enter the cookies for your trackers which will be used to perform tracker actions requiring cookies (Adding torrent via URL/Searching torrents on tracker in ruTorrent GUI itself,etc)
Format of cookies - The format of cookies is different for every tracker and to find out the format go to ruTorrent settings --> Search --> Engines Private --> Click on the private tracker name from the drop down list and it will show the format of cookies to be entered in the Cookies section
How to obtain cookie values for the tracker?
I will explain the process for firefox and it is similar for most of the browsers.
Firefox --> Tools --> Options --> Privacy --> Click on "remove individual cookies"
Enter tracker name in the Search filed (Do not include WWW, just search for the domain name)
It will filter out other cookies and bring up the searched domain cookies, click on the cookies with name "uid" to get the uid number and on "pass" to get the pass.
The uid and pass values are the ones that appear in the lower half in the line of "content", copy those values and save them.
Now construct the cookie structure as per the format we found earlier from the ruTorrent search settings section
For iptorrents the format being
Host|pass=passvalue;uid=uidvalue;
So it becomes for eg.
iptorrents.com|pass=yourpasskeyvaluehere;uid=youruidvaluehere;
www.iptorrents.com|pass=yourpasskeyvaluehere;uid=youruidvaluehere;
also add the another line if the domain uses www, same cookie values will work for subdomains with www, but keep in mind www.iptorrents.com is subdomain of iptorrents.com but iptorrents.me is a totally different domain and you will need different cookies for that domain.
Settings --> File Manager (Explained in file manager section of tutorial)
Settings --> Retrackers
Again this is a feature only useful for public trackers. What it does is it appends all the tracker urls listed in Add Announces field to all the new added torrents. Private trackers do not allow this and is considered a type of cheating.
• Don't touch private torrents - Keep it ticked
• Add Announces - Leave it blank
• Remove Announces - Leave it blank
Settings --> Feeds
This settings defines the update interval in minutes for RSS feeds. Optimum time is 10-15 min , don't set it to value lower than 10 as it will hammer the server and might get you in trouble at trackers.
If you need better upload speeds on new torrents its advised to use Autodl-Irssi which catches torrents in real time without any delay as RSS.
• Update Interval(m) - 15
Settings --> Scheduler
This works exactly like utorrent's scheduler feature and has no real use for a seedbox.
In case still you want to use it tick enable scheduler and change the required boxes by double clicking on them in the Scheduler table.
The colours of the box corresponds to the behaviour(Unlimited/turn off/Seeding only/Limited1 etc.) of the seedbox for that block of time on that day.
Settings --> Search (Explained in the search section of tutorial)
Settings --> History (Explained in the History section of tutorial)
Settings --> Channels
Channels
Name - Name of the channel : Set a name for the channel from which you can easily know the settings for that channel eg. up5MBdown10MB
UL (KB/s) - sets the upload speed cap for that channel (0 denotes unlimited so the minimum working throttle speed is 1KB/s)
DL (KB/s) - sets the download speed cap for that channel (0 denotes unlimited so the minimum working throttle speed is 1KB/s)
Default channel - If you set a default channel, all the added torrents will be assigned to that channel automatically.
You can create customized channels with both UL/DL speeds set according to your needs.
To set a torrent to a channel right click on the torrent --> set channel --> select the channel from the list ( That torrents speeds will be throttled according to the channel speed settings)
Settings --> Unpack
Autounpacking can come in handy for scene trackers where you can set Autolabelling for the scene torrents and add them to the auto unpack.
Enable autounpacking if torrents label matches - Enter the label for which you the torrents will be autounpacked (Eg. a label you use for a screne tracker)
Unpack to - The directory path where the content will be unpacked
Append to path name when unpacking data
Torrent label/Torrent name - Ticking these options will append the label, torrent name to the directory of the unpacked data.
Settings --> Ratio groups
This is an excellent plugin useful to automate torrent removal after specified conditions are met.
Name - Use a self descriptive name for channel, eg. if you are settings a ratio group for a specific tracker name is something like TrackerName1
Min % - Min percentage of the torrent data size to be uploaded before it triggers action.
Max % - Max percentage of the torrent data size to be uploaded before it triggers action.
UL,MB - Min amount of data in MB to be uploaded before it triggers action.
Time,h - Seedtime in hours after which the action will be triggered.
Action - This options decides what to to do to the torrent when it reaches the trigger value
> Stop - Stops the torrent
> Stop & clear group - Stops torrent and clears it from the ratio group tag.
> Remove - removes only torrent from the client
> remove data - removes torrent plus datat associated with it.
> Set channel - sets channel on reaching trigger value/s.
Default ratio group - Don't set (If you set a default group all added torrents will be automatically assigned to that ratio group)
To manually assign ratio group, right click on any torrent/s and use option set ratio group and tick the group you want to assign the torrent to.
So how this works?
"Seed this torrent until it's ratio reach Min and with that uploaded not less than UL megabytes. Stop seeding any way if the ratio has reached Max".
eg. For a ratio group i set min % 200, max% 300, UL,MB - 1000, Time,h - 48 Action - remove data
This means for a torrent in this ratio group if a torrent seeds to a ratio of 2 with data uploaded above 1000MB it will trigger the action and remove torrent along with its data.
If the torrent seeds to a ratio of 2 with data uploaded less than 1000MB, it will not trigger action yet but when it reaches max % ratio of 3 it will trigger the action even if the data uploaded is below 1000MB.
The UL,MB is unnecessary option as torrent sizes differ and there is no point in setting ratiogroup based on total uploaded data as all trackers take in to account either ratio/seedtime or both.
eg. for a tracker which has a H&R system based on torrent ratio/seedtime, say BTN which requires either to seed above ratio 1 or for 24 hrs.
So the settings will be
Min % - 120, Max % - 120, UL,MB - 0, Time,h - 28
100% equals ratio 1 but we are setting it to 120% to allow a safe margin and time to 28 hrs with 4 hrs safe margin accounting for failed tracker announces/downtime,etc
Settings --> Screenshots ( Explained in the screenshots section of the tutorial)
12 -
Shorcuts info ruTorrent
Clicking on this help ? button will bring up a dialog box with shortcut options
The shortcuts listed whose function is listed in black colour will work with the keyboard shortcuts listed in that box.
The greyed out description means the keyboard shortcuts will not work for that option but clicking on the greyed out function will perform that function.
13 - Search Torrents
This feature allows you to search torrents Locally (Those already loaded on the seedbox)/Public Trackers/Private Trackers
Searching Locally so say you have 500 torrents loaded in your seedbox and need to find a particular torrent by name, this feature can come in handy
Searching torrents on private trackers.
For this function to work you need to either enter your tracker site login credentials/ Tracker cookies in the ruTorrent settings.
ruTorrent settings --> Search
Common limitations
Result limit - 50 (Use a reasonable number here 50-100 so that the results don't create a foot long of results page)
Engines (public)
Click on the public tracker engines from the dropdown list and tick or untick enabled depending upon if you need or don't need to search from these trackers.
Include in to ALL category - ticking this will include this tracker in search if you search for something with the option "Search in all trackers"
Result Limit - Number of results cap from the said tracker
Engines (Private)
Select the private trackers you want to enable from the dropdown list and tick enable (by default all private trackers are disabled). Depending on the tracker you will need to either account credentials or site cookies in the respective sections of the settings, the format of cookies will be
specified when you select a tracker from drop down list. Keep in mind the cookies need to be entered in specified format in cookies section (ruTorrent settings --> Cookies) or account credentials entered in accounts section of settings
eg. Searching for torrents from IPT
Entered cookies and enabled Iptorrents in search settings.
Clicked the magnifying glass search icon in the right top corner --> Private --> Ticked Iptorrents
Entered - search keywords
Category - All
and click on the green arrow
It will display the search results from the site right in the ruTorrent interface
You can right click on any result and load the torrent right from the ruTorrent GUI and it will be automatically fetched and passed to the client for downloading.
Open in in browser will open that torrent link in new tab.
Remove item - will remove selected search result from the list.
Url info - will list torrent details and .torrent download url's in log tab.
Each of your search action will create new results lists sorted under the search category on left side pane.
Right click on any search results list
Refresh tag - reruns the same search and refreshes results.
Remove tag - removes the search tag along with the result list from the torrent pane.
**Status Pane**
Disk space - Indicates the percentage of the consumed disk space. If you hover cursor over this area it will display the exact amount of consumed space out of total space eg. 210 GB/250 GB
CPU Load - Displays approximate CPU load. It increase while force rechecking, creating torrent, etc.
UL Speed - It displays current realtime global upload speed, it can be capped by right clicking in this speed area. Total uploaded data value is for current rTorrent session, it resets if rTorrrent restarts.
DL Speed - It displays current realtime global download speed, it can be capped by right clicking in this speed area. Total downloaded data value is for current rTorrent session, it resets if rTorrrent restarts.
Port - Green tick sign is for correctly forwarded open port, yellow triangle for unknown status, red stop sign for closed port.
rTorrent/libtorrent version - From the eg. rtorrent version is 0.9.3 and libtorrent version is 0.13.3
Time - Current time for the client.
**9 - Autodl-Irssi**
This is an excellent plugin which monitors the irc in realtime and grabs torrents as soon as they are released on trackers thereby increasing the chances of reaching maximum upload
data on these torrents.
Plus it offers the solution of completely automating the torrent adding/deleting process thus minimizing the time you need to spend managing the seedbox.
Autodl-irssi + Autotools + Ratiogroups + rsync can offer a complete seedbox solution to downloading required content automagically to your pc without needing to either log in to tracker site or even opening ruTorrent GUI
With these tools combined you can have the content delivered to your harddrive ready to watch automatically.
(Complete setup for auto seedbox management will be explained in another tutorial)
Keep in mind each tracker has different announce formats and so the filters setting need to be optimized for the tracker you want to use it for, so you will need to search the tracker forums for better filter guides for that tracker
General guidelines and explanation about Autodl-Irssi settings.
Click Autodl-irssi icon --> Preferences --->General
Maximum saved releases : 1000
Save download history : Tick if you need the download history (doesn't matter even if you untick it)
Automatic updates - ASk (Autodl-Irssi developement has stopped so there won't be any new official new versions)
Preferences --->Action
This tab is important so fill correctly
Choose .torrent action : rtorrent (Save to watch folder option is useful to use this plugin with deluge, will be explained in Deluge tutorial, other options are not much useful for a seedbox user)
Folder : your default download folder
Label : Choose any label you want ( all downloads via irssi will have that label and can be easily pointed out from manually added torrents using this feature)
ratio group : None ( Choose other ratio group only if you want to automatically stop torrents after they hit certain ratio)
ruT channel : None (Choose other channel in case you want to limit upload/download bandwidth on irssi torrents)
Priority : Normal
Leave those last two boxes unticked
Preferences ---> Webui
Preferences ---> FTP
Preferences ---> IRC --> Auto connect to IRC servers and channels (Keep this ticked)
Preferences ---> Programs
Preferences ---> Advanced
^ Leave all the remaining settings default (these settings are for using Autodl with utorrent on home pc,FTP uploading .torrent files somewhere,Relaying irc out put,etc)
Next thing to do is find out the irc server details of the tracker you want to use autodl for.
Autodl-Irssi---> Announces channels --> Scroll through the tracker list and click on the desired tracker name --> Note the server and channel details as we are going to use it next.
eg . Iptorrents details are
server - irc.iptorrents.com
Channel - #ipt.announce
You should also check on the tracker site if the irc server and announce channel details are correct.
Setting up server details for the tracker.
Autodl-Irssi --> IRC Servers
Click on new and enter the details we obtained above
Server - This is where you put the server address, i.e irc.server.com
Port - This is where you specify the port (leaving this blank uses 6667)
SSL - Check this box if you are connecting to an SSL server port (Not recommended as ssl is known to create connection problems)
Nick - This is the irc username for this server. Mostly this is just your sitenick for that tracker.
Password - This is the nickserv password you used while registering to the trackers irc network. If you have not registered to tracker irc network yet, it is recommended you do it as per guide on that tracker using an irc client on your pc.
Email - This is the email address your user is registered under. This field can be left blank as email is only required while registering your nick to the irc network.
IRC Channel setting :: Most of this fields can be left blank depending on the tracker in question.
Channel Select - Marked with #1 in the picture above, this allows you to select channels which are already configured in order to edit settings.
New - Creates a new channel entry
Remove - Removes the currently selected channel
Channel - Channel name, i.e #ipt.announce
Password - If the irc channel requires a password to join, it goes here (Most trackers do not have any password for channel, instead they use invite command based security of channels)
Invite Command - If you must enter a specific command to join a channel, it goes here, i.e "/msg SOMEONE something password"
Invite HTTP URL - if your channel requires a websites url, it goes here
Invite HTTP Header - website header
Invite HTTP Data - Invite website data
Next setting is entering your tracker credentials (Either authkey+passkey or cookie) that will be used by autodl-irssi to download .torrent files automatically.
Autodl-Irssi --> Trackers
Scroll to the tracker name and select it and it will provide a description about what info needs to be entered and how to obtain it.
eg. for iptorrents it requires uid and passkey to entered from the cookie.
Next step is setting up filters
This is the most important settings and is little bit complex, also how the filter settings work differ from tracker to tracker, so you will need to checkout Autodl filter guides on the tracker wiki/forums
Here are the basic rules of filter settings that apply to every tracker.
> There are two types of wildcards that work with autodl-irssi
? : any one character (Note: If ? is included there needs to be one character occupying its space in real announce i.e h?264 will not match h264]
* : any number of any characters or nothing ( so h*264 will match both h.264 and h264)
Wildcards are only allowed in specific fields of the filter (If you hover over a field it will say wildcards are allowed for that field)
Plus thing to note is ? wildcard do not work in some of the wildcard allowed fields either, we will be using wildcards only in Match releases field as its mostly unnecessary anywhere else
> If a field is left blank the default behaviour of autodl-irssi for that particular field is to ignore that field completely and DOWNLOAD everything that matches other fields
eg. IF you create a filter with all fields blank and just choose Match sites : ipt ,it will download each and every release from ipt
In short using only wildcard * in a field to download everything is not warranted and is not recommended as leaving a field blank is better way to do that.
> The variables in all the fields are set to use Rule:Any, only Music-->Tags/Except tags provides a option of Rule: ANY OR ALL
What this means: If you enter 720p, 1080p, 1080i in the resolution field it will match a torrent if its EITHER of these listed resolutions i.e Rule: ANY of the listed resolutions.
Whereas only Tags/Except Tags provides the option to use Rule:ALL So whenever using Rule:ALL you must be careful what you enter in the Tags field
> All fields are case insensitive so Breaking.Bad* is same as BREakINg.bAd*
> You can set multiple filters, usually its good to set one filter per show. Each filter works independent of all the other filters. Plus you can set different download folder for each filter for better organistaion.
Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting. - Read the usage section of Autodl-Irssi at this link to know more about filter fields.
Autodl-Irssi log tab
This tab logs the autodl events and posts the log if a torrent is matched and passed to seedbox, error messages if any, monitoring channel messages, etc.
Clear - Erases the Autodl-Irssi log tab contents.
Update - Checks for newer versions.
What's new - Checks for new messages/updates from the Autodl-Irssi developers.
Backup - Will prompt you to save the autodl.cfg file which contains the autodl-irssi settings/filter settings which can be used later.
Restore - Use browse button to navigate to the autodl.cfg file on your pc and click restore to apply the back-upped settings at a later date if you need them.
**8 - RSS Downloader
This is better explained by the developers here
• What is ruTorrent ?
=> ruTorrent is front end for the bittorrent client rTorrent, don't confuse rTorrent and ruTorrent as both are related but different entities.
rTorrent is the actual client which handles all the torrent activities (seeding/leeching) whereas ruTorrent is the middle man which shows you what rTorrent is doing in the background and allows you to communicate with rTorrent easily.
To put it simply ruTorrent is what you see when you open your ruTorrent GUI in the web browser.
• Logging into your seedbox with ruTorrent
=> When you open your seedbox url provided by Ultraseedbox in a browser it will ask for your credentials which will be supplied to you by ultraseedbox when you make a purchase.
Enter username and password in the respective fields and click OK. This should open the ruTorrent interface.
• Overview of the ruTorrent interface
=> Check out this screenshot, all the buttons will be explained in detail.
Some options will not be available or will be placed in different order/position depending upon the version/order of installed plugins.
Menu Pane
1 - Log off from current ruTorrent session
2 - Add Torrent
3 - Create Torrent
4 - Remove Torrent
5 - Start Torrent
6 - Pause Torrent
7 - Stop Torrent
8 - RSS Downloader
9 - Autodl-Irssi
10 - ruTorrent Settings
11 - URL replacement in RSS and Ratio Rules Plugin
12 - Shortcuts Info for ruTorrent
13 - Search torrents
1 - Log off from current ruTorrent session
As it says it will log you out of the current ruTorrent browser session
2 -
(Shortcut to bring up the Add torrent dialog is Ctrl+O)
This button is used to pass .torrent files directly or with torrent url/Magnet link to your seedbox
There are 2 main ways to add torrent to seedbox
A] Adding torrent by uploading .torrent file
Torrent file - Click 'Browse...' to choose a .torrent file from your computer to upload. Once choosen click 'Add File' and the file will be passed to seedbox.
B] Adding torrent via torrent URL
Torrent URL - Go to any tracker browse page--> right click on the [DL] download link of the torrent you want to download --> Paste the copied URL in the Torrent URL field and click Add URL
This will work only with trackers which allow downloading .torrent files without logging in to the site.
In simple words it works if the download link contains your authkey and passkey in it. This method is easier than downloading .torrent file and then passing to seedbox.
e.g. it works with WCD, BTN, PTP
DO NOT work with IPT, TL, FTN (There is way to make this work with these sites too but you will need to enter your tracker credentials/cookies in the ruTorrent settings/Accounts section. Keep in mind seedbox ip will be recorded as logging ip by the tracker so its advised to ask for permission from tracker staff beforehand)
C] Other ways of adding torrent via FTP, RSS, Autodl-Irssi will be described in later parts of tutorial.
Options while adding torrent
Directory - Allows you to choose the path where your torrent's files will be saved . If left blank the torrents will be downloaded in default download directory. You don't need to change it unless you want to keep files in different folders.
Don't add torrent's name to path - Tick this if you want to alter the main folder name for a multifile torrent. If you tick this you need to specify other name in the Directory field
e.g. you will rarely need this option, it is useful in case of torrents with foreign/special characters in main folder/file name.
OR in case of cross seeding where different trackers have different folder name but same content.
Don't start the download automatically - Tick this to add the torrent in a stopped state.
e.g. If a lot of torrents are already downloading or if you want to check the included files/structure before starting torrent use this feature.
Fast Resume - Tick this if you already have the files and want to seed without hash checking. Always remember to specify the directory where the files are located if you want to use this feature, if directory is not mentioned this option do not work.
This option is particularly useful for
A] Cross seeding
B] Uploading torrents at trackers which require you to download .torrent file from site after uploading a torrent.
What this option does is it totally bypasses hash checking which is resource hogging process and adds the torrents in seeding state directly saving your cpu resources and time.
3 -
Select Source - Click the ... and navigate to the file/folder you want to create a torrent for --> After selecting file/folder click X.
Torrent Properties
Tracker : Enter the tracker url which is generally listed on the upload page of the tracker site. Just go to the trackers upload page -- copy the mentioned tracker url on that page -- Paste it in the tracker box
eg. its usually in the from of http://xyztracker.com:10000/passkeycharacters/announce OR http://xyztracker.com:10000/announce
Comment : Leave blank. It doesn't matter even if you write anything in this field.
Piece size : Never use the default 256KB piece size as it creates huge .torrent file which is problematic to everyone.
General guide for choosing piece size
Piece size Torrent size
1MB For torrents <500MB
2MB For torrents 500MB to 1GB
4MB For torrents 1GB to 2GB
8MB For torrents 2GB to 4GB
16MB For torrents above 4GB
Other : click both options
Start seeding - The created torrents is automatically passed to the seedbox.
Private - Adds private flag to the .torrent which is required for all private trackers.
Click create and it will start creating torrent process which will take time from few min to hours depending upon torrent size and seedbox resources.
After the process is complete click save to download the .torrent file which you will need for uploading to the tracker.
Create Torrent from the Filemanager Plugin Menu
Creating torrent from file manager menu is almost similar just with the added benefit of easy navigation to the source file/folder
Navigate to desired file/folder in file manager plugin. Select the file/folder you want to create torrent for --> Right Click --> Create --> New .torrent submenu
It will open the create torrent dialog box with the source file/folder already selected as source, fill the rest of options as mentioned above and click create.
Save the .torrent file after hashing it done.
4 -
Clicking this will remove highlighted Torrent/s from seedbox.
Keep in mind this button will remove only .torrent file but the data for that torrent will remain on the disk.
To remove torrent along with the torrent data always use
Highlight torrent/s --> Right click --> Remove and Delete Data option
5 -
6 -
7 -
These buttons can be used to :-
Pause - Torrent is paused meaning only torrent is stopped, but files remain open (Open files refer to the files being still in use by rTorrent and able to read/write instantly on resuming). Use this only if you want to pause active downloading/uploading for a short time. (This works different than utorrent's pause option, in utorrent pause option only pauses active uploading/downloading whereas keeping torrent/announce/connected peers active)
Start - Starts the torrent
Stop - Stops the torrent plus closes the files associated with it.
Alternatively these options are also available by right clicking on the highlighted torrents/s.
**ruTorrent interface usage guide**
ruTorrent interface is fully customizable and you can modify everything to suit your needs.
Torrent List --> Columns
Columns are fully customizable - Right click on any column and untick any columns you don't need. Columns can be arranged in any order, to change order use left-click + Ctrl on a column and move it to the position you like and release.
Single click on any column will arrange the torrent as per that column factor, clicking again will reverse the order of torrents as per that factor.
e.g. If you click on column "Name" torrents will be listed from A-Z as per name, clicking again on "Name" will sort the torrents from Z-A as per name.
Sorting can be done by any column factor, example clicking on size will sort torrents by the data size.
Columns Explanation
• Name - The name of the torrent.
• Size - Size of the torrent data, this is the total torrent size.
• Done - Percentage of the data downloaded out of the total size of torrent.
• Downloaded - Total hashed data on disk from total torrent data size. This does not represent actual downloaded value, it only says x amount is present on disk out of total torrent data.
• Uploaded - Total Data uploaded for that torrent.
• Ratio - Ratio simply is Total Uploaded Data divided by Total actual downloaded data.
• DL - Current Download speed for that torrent.
• UL - Current Upload speed for that torrent.
• ETA - Estimated Time of Arrival. Approximate time required to download that torrent based on current download speed.
• Label - Label for that torrent.
• Peers - The number in brackets is total number of peers (Leechers+partial seeders). The number outside the bracket is number of of peers your seedbox is currently connected to.
• Seeds - The number in brackets is total number of seeders as reported by tracker. Number outside bracket is number of seeders your seedbox is currently connected to.
• Priority - Priority of torrent you have set it to (Explained below in right click options description)
• Created on - The date and time the .torrent file was created. This info is read from the .torrent file and its missing occasionally.
• Remaining - Data remaining to be downloaded out of the total size of torrent data.
• Finished - Time elapsed since the torrent was finished downloading. This is approximate value and do not take in to account crashes/restarts, so always check on tracker site for reported seeding time.
• Added - Date and Time .torrent was added to the seedbox (Time is as per the timezone set on your seedbox)
• Ratiogroup - Ratiogroup the torrent is placed in. Is blank if torrent is not placed in any ratio group.
• Channel - Speed Channel the torrent is placed in. Is blank if torrent is not under any speed channel limitation.
• Ratio/Day/Week/Month - Average ratio per day/week/month for that torrent.
• Tracker - Tracker of the torrent.
Right Click on the torrent opens a multitude of options, each option is described below.
These option can be applied to multiple torrents by selecting multiple torrents using Ctrl + Left click on torrents and then right click.
Options
• Start/Pause/Stop - Starts/Pauses/Stops the selected torrent/s.
• Force Recheck - Use this option with caution as hash checking is very time/cpu consuming process. It rehashes the torrent data, useful in cross seeding if you are not sure you have 100% data or to recheck downloaded data in case of downloading problems.
• Check for update - ###
• Add peer - This is public torrent function, does not work for private torrents.Using this you can manually add peer by IP to the torrent.
• Update Trackers - Manually updates the tracker. Useful when you upload a torrent to tracker( which do not require re-downloading of uploaded torrent), you just need to use this option after uploading to start seeding the uploaded torrent. Also useful to solve various temporary tracker errors like Timeout/could not resolve host/Http 500 etc.
• Labels --> Submenu - New label/Remove Label/And already available labels. Labelling of torrents is useful for better organising of torrents, applying ratio/speed limits based on label groups.
Use new label submenu to create a new label and assign it to the selected torrent.
Remove label to remove the already assigned label.
Choose already created label name to assign it to the selected torrent/s.
• Priority --> Submenu
A]High
B]Normal
C]Low
D]Don't Download.
Keep in mind this priority option applies to the entire torrent and is different from the priority option in "Files Tab" in right lower pane which applies to the files in a single torrent.
Basically its downloading torrents based on priority in which the started torrents will be allocated bandwidth (Approximate prioritization of bandwidth) in the order of Higher--Normal--Low
Don't download option means the selected torrent will not be downloaded and will go in partial seeding mode if started.
• Set Ratio Group - The "set ratio group" allows you to put the torrent in one of many preset ratio groups (Rules of ratiogroups described below in settings section)
• Set Channel - The "set channel" option allows you to put the torrent in one of many pre selected download/upload thottle channels (Speed set in channel settings described below)
• Remove - Same as remove button in top menu pane. Only removes the .torrent from the client leaving the downloaded torrent data on disk.
• Remove and delete data - Removes .torrent plus associated data on the disk. Always use this option to remove torrents as using only remove option will keep the data on disk occupying the space.
• Details - Opens the General tab in the "Right Lower Pane" (Details just below this section)
• Properties - Opens the Bandwidth settings which can be modified for particular torrent. Use cautiously if you know what you are doing.
• Get .torrent - Downloads the .torrent to your local computer. Useful in case you downloaded associated torrent data via sftp/https from seedbox and want to seed it from your home client (Saves the effort of searching torrent on tracker site).
• Edit torrent - Open Announce URL edit box where you can edit the announce url of the torrent.
Use with caution as malicious tweaking of announce URL's is prohibited by private trackers.
This is particularly very useful when you reset passkey at any of the private tracker. If you reset the passkey for a tracker all you need to do is Right click on the tracker name in question in the "Left Sorting Pane" (This will mass select all torrents for that tracker)-->
Click stop (To stop that tracker torrents) --> Again Right click on tracker name on left menu pane --> Edit (opens edit Announce url box)--> Delete the old passkey from the box and replace it with new Passkey --> Ok --> Right click--> Start
This saves the trouble of re-downloading all .torrents after passkey reset and the procedure can be finished in less than 2 min.
• Save to.. - It is similar to utorrent's "set download location" option where you can change the directory of the data for the torrent without interrupting seeding of the torrent.
Tick mark Move data files and Fast resume so the torrent keeps seeding from the new data directory automatically.
• Ignore scheduler - will ignore scheduler rules if any set in the settings panel.
• Unpack - For rar'ed/zipped content it can be unpacked using this option.
You can navigate and choose the directory where the unpacked files would be saved. Leaving it blank will place the unpacked files in same folder as the the rar/zip files.
**Left side torrent sorting pane**
This pane offers a variety of sorting options based on state/label/tracker and search result/rss feed options.
•• State
Downloading - Clicking on this will open torrents which are actively downloading + stopped Incomplete + partial seeding + paused incomplete + errored incomplete (In short any torrent not finished downloading 100% will be here)
Finished - All 100% finished torrents (Stopped finished + seeding torrents + errored but finished + paused finished )
Active - Torrents which are actively uploading or downloading data currently.
Inactive - torrents which are not uploading or downloading any data currently.
Error - contains all torrents which received error from the tracker.
•• Labels - Clicking on any label will list torrents with that label in the torrent list pane.
•• Search - It will list search results either from local torrents in the client or from trackers (Explained in search function)
•• Trackers - torrents can be sorted by their trackers using this , click on the tracker name to list the torrents from that tracker.
Keep in mind right clicking on any of the above listed categories from state/labels/trackers will open the usual right click options from the torrent list pane BUT the options will apply to ALL the torrents in that category. eg. If you right click on iptorrents category and click stop, it will stop ALL iptorrent torrents.
** Right Lower Pane Guide **
• General - This tab shows the general info for the torrent selected in the torrent list pane. Everything is pretty much self explanatory
Most important thing in this tab is tracker status. For the torrents with red arrow sign (Error torrent), this tracker status provides the exact cause for the error.
Most common tracker errors
A] Unregistered torrent - This is most common tracker error and the most common reason for this error is the torrent in question being deleted from the tracker site for w/e reason.
Other less common reasons for "Unregistered torrent" error are
>Recently created torrent yet to be uploaded on tracker site. It resolves after uploading the torrent to site and manually updating the tracker.
> .torrent file created with faulty versions(V3.1/V3.2) of utorrent. These torrent files do not work in rTorrent as the .torrent file itself is faulty.
B] Could not resolve host name/HTTP 500/Timeout - These are temporary tracker errors due to problems on the tracker side and usually resolve by itself after sometime.
• Files - This tab shows the files/folders for the selected torrent.
Aside from showing the file/folder structure this tab offers more options via right click.
Sub Columns in the Files tab : These columns are customizable like the torrent list columns and their order can be changed using Ctrl+Left Click. The unneeded columns can be hidden by right clicking on any of the column header and ticking off the unneeded columns.
Clicking on any column will arrange the files/folders in the order of the clicked column factor.
Sub-columns
Name - Lists names of files and folders of the selected torrent.
Size - Size of the file
Done - Size of the data downloaded out of the total file size
% - Percentage of the file/folder downloaded.
Priority - Priority of the file/folder.
Right Click on files/folders opens more options.
Priority - High/Normal/Don't download. Files will be downloaded in the order of priority and those set to don't download will not be downloaded.
Download strategy - Normal/Leading Chunk first/Trailing chunk first : This option is not much useful as such, you can alter the download priority based on chunk arrangement (Keep in mind the torrent chunks are not necessarily serially in order of files)
View -Tree/list. For folders in a torrent you can alter the listings to tree or list view. Choose what suits you best. Tree view offers better viewing experience IMO.
Get file - You can download any file off the bat right in the browser using this option. Useful to download small sample files/nfo files/Images etc. (Not desirable method for downloading big files as it causes the ruTorrent GUI timeout errors, For big files use the traditional sftp/https links)
Unpack - Right click on any rar/zip file and click unpack to open up the unpacking dialogue and unpack the files.
Mediainfo - Right click on any video file and click mediainfo to get the complete mediainfo for the file. Useful while uploading as most trackers require this info and to know the video specs.
Screenshots - Right click on any video file and click screenshots to create and save screenshots for that video.
You can view screenshots in the console and save them to your computer. (Useful for uploaders and in general to check the quality of video)
Screenshot settings (ruTorrent settings --> screenshots row)
Frame width - Keep this unticked as we need native resolution screenshots. If you tick it and specify a width, the screenshots will be resized to the specified width.
Frames count - 5 This specifies number of screenshots that should be taken from a file. eg. If you need 3 screenshots set it to 5 considering a few screens will be from bad scene/fast moving scene/etc
Start frame offset (In seconds) - This number decides at what point of the video first screenshot should be taken from, eg. setting it to 120 seconds will take the first screenshots at 2 min in the video
Set it to a number depending on the video you need to screenshot (Low for a music video file/High for a movie)
Time between frames (In seconds) - Its the time gap in video between successive screenshots. Set it to a number depending on the length of the video.
Slideshow Interval (In seconds) - Its time frame between screenshots slides switching when you use slideshow option.
Image format - JPEG/PNG Recommended to use PNG format as it is lossless image format.
• Trackers - This is only informative tab with info about the tracker, all entities are pretty much self explanatory.
Right click in this tab provides options to
Enable - To enable a tracker if it is disabled.
Disable - To disable a tracker (Do not use these two options on private trackers)
Update Trackers - Manually updates tracker (Same option as "Update trackers" options which pops up in torrent right click options)
Edit - Opens Announce URL edit dialog box (Use with caution, this is same Edit option as explained above in "Right Click Options" Section)
• Peers - This is also pretty much only informative tab, it lists the peers (Seeders+Leechers) connected to your seedbox for the selected torrent.
Sub-columns
IP - IP/resolved domain name of the connected peer.
Client - Bittorrent client and its version of the connected client. (libtorrent is name listed for rTorrent client as it is built based on libtorrent).
Country - If GeoIP plugin is installed it will show the flag and country name of the peer's location based on its IP.
Done - This is the percentage of the torrent that the connected peer has (keep in mind its peers % complete status and not your seedbox's). 100% means that peer is seeder, Anything less than 100% means that peer is either downloading the torrent or partial seeding. Once you have finished downloading 100% data and seeding torrent you will connect only to the leechers for that torrent.
Downloaded/Uploaded - Amount of data downloaded from/uploaded to that peer.
DL/UL - Current DL/UL speed to that peer.
Right click options in peers tab
Add peer - Only for public torrents
Ban/Kick/Snub - These options should not be use on private trackers as it can land you in trouble. Use only if necessary
Bans : Bans the peer IP and will not allow to connect it to your seedbox for that rTorrent session.
Kick : Kicks the peer temporarily, can connect to your seedbox after sometime.
Snub : Keeps the peer connected but ignores it and blocks all data transfer to that peer. Can be unsnubbed using right click again.
• Speed - It shows the global DL/UL speed for last 10 min in graph form and continues to write the graph in realtime. Moving the cursor over the graph line shows the exact speed at the time on graph.
• Plugins - This tab lists all the installed plugins.
Subcolumns : Like everywhere columns are fully customizable and clicking on column sorts the plugin list by that column factor.
Name - Name of the plugin
Version - Version of the plugin
Status - Loaded/Unloaded for the plugin. Disabled plugins will show status as unloaded
Launch - Enabled/Disabled. By default all plugins are enabled, you can disable the plugins that you don't need.
Author - Author of the plugin
Description - Brief description about the plugin.
Right click on a plugin opens options
Unload - It unloads the plugin in question. If a plugin is not working properly then unload it using this option and reload the ruTorrent GUI to load it again.
Launch Enable/Disable - You can disable plugins that you don't need and they will disappear from the ruTorrent GUI if disabled. Enable again from this tab if you change your mind.
eg. Chunks plugin is pretty useless for me so disabling it will disable the chunks tab and reduce the ruTorrent load time.
• File Manager - This is an excellent plugin offering multitude of options in one tab. Most importantly it offers very easy navigation through the folder/files which makes it so easy to use.
Unlike the previous listed "Right Lower Pane" tabs this tab works irrespective of the selected torrent in the torrent list pane.
Top directory path lists the current path to the open folder in the tab.
To directory path is the path to the current open directory
SubColumns - Customizable as always
Name - Name of the file/folder.
Size - Size of the file.
Time - Date and Time the folder/file was created.
Type - Type of the file(NFO,MKV,RAR,ZIP,SFV, etc.)
Permissions - Read/Write permissions for the file/folder.
The power of File Manager plugin lies in its right click options.
Open - To save the selected file, if its a folder this option will open that folder.
View - This option is available if you right click on .nfo file. It will open the nfo file in NFO viewer right in the browser.
Copy - Copy the selected file/folder to any other directory.
Move - Move file/folder to any other directory.
Delete - Deletes the selected file/folder.
Rename - To rename the file/folder.
Create - It will open submenu options under create
New .torrent - It will open create torrent dialog box with the selected file/folder as source. (Explained in detail already in create torrent section of tutorial)
New Directory - will create a new folder in the current directory.
New Archive - You can select multiple files with Ctrl+Select and use this option to create rar/zip/tar/gzip archive of the selected files.
SFV file - will create sfv file for the selected file/s (Not of much use in bittorrent as most trackers don't require sfv file)
Screenshots - will create Thumbnailed screenshot as per settings set in File-manager settings section (Keep in mind this is different than "screenshot" option in "Files" tab. This is part of filemanager whereas the other one is a standalone plugin)
Check sfv - Right click on any sfv file and use this option to verify the contents of the folder by matching it with hash in the sfv file (Not of much importance as bittorrent protocol itself uses hashing method to download data, the chance of downloading corrupt data is none unless the .torrent itself was created with corrupt data as source)
Mediainfo - Reads mediainfo for any video file and opens it in the console tab (Works similar to mediainfo option in "Files" tab)
Refresh - to refresh the current directory.
File Manager settings (Can be accessed via ruTorrent Settings-->File Manager row)
Display settings:
> Paths history number of values - 5 (Use something between 5-10). This is the number of paths which the plugin stores in memory for easy navigation to those files via path history dropdown option.
> Strip trailing slashes from the directory names - Ticking this option will hide the slash at the end of folder names (eg. Folder name : Evil.Dead.2013.DVDRip.X264-AMIABLE/ <--this is the trailing slash, with this option ticked the slash won't appear in folder listing)
> Show hidden files - Usually the system or config files might clutter the file system and Unticking this will hide those files from file explorer. Tick this if you need those files to be visible in file explorer.
> Clean console log automatically - Events like mediainfo/sfv check/archive creation are logged/performed in console tab which keeps the info until manually it is manually cleared. If you want it to clear info automatically tick this option.
> Permissions format - Choose the format of permissions to be displayed in file explore : Octat(0755) or Symbolic (-rw)
> Date Time format - Set the format of date/time according to your needs. (eg. %d-%M-%y %h:%m:%s equals to dd-mm-yyyy hh:mm:ss) Alter positions/separators according to your needs.
> Archive settings - Multi-volume format : This applies to archive creation settings when you create multi-part archives --> New-Part1.rar/New-part2.rar OR Old.r01/Old.r02
> Screenshot settings - Screen columns/rows/thumbnail width : decides number of columns/rows/Each thumbnail width (Only Applies to screenshot option in file manager tab)
• History - This is only informative tab. It lists all your torrent history.
The columns are pretty much self explanatory.
History Settings (ruTorrent settings --> History row)
Maximum number of records - Keep this value at a reasonable number (100-300). Settings it to higher value will increase rutorrent loading time as it needs to pull all those records.
Log - Addition/Deletion/Finished : Tick mark the events you want to log in the history tab.
Desktop Notifications - Does not work with firefox currently, If you use google chrome then you can use this feature. If enabled it will display log events notifications in the right lower corner of your desktop.
Autoclose notications after - 5 seconds. It is the amount of time you want the notification to be displayed on your desktop after which it will disappear itself.
• Chunks - This shows the status/availability of the chunks(Data pieces). Much of informative use only
Mode - Downloaded : Will show the download status of the chunks for the selected torrent.
Availability : Will show the availability of the chunks based on number of peers.
• Traffic - Shows traffic statistics in bar diagram. Can be used to track traffic statistics based on per day/month/year also can show traffic based on tracker/selected torrent. Clicking clear button will erase the traffic stats for the set variable (torrent/tracker/day,etc)
• Autodl-Irssi - This tab logs the events for autodl-irssi plugin. It will be described in Autodl-Irssi section
• Log - this tab logs the events for ruTorrent and it can be cleared using "Clear" button next to log tab.
10 -
Note : A few Options in ruTorrent settings are already set in .rtorent.rc file and changing those options via ruTorrent will be effective only for that session.
Once rTorrent is restarted those options will be reverted back to those set in .rtorrent.rc file.
Most commonly Download,Connection and Advanced settings are already set in .rtorrent.rc file and its safe to leave them untouched.
Explanation of all the settings options
Settings --> General
• Confirm when deleting torrents - If this option is ticked, it will pop up a confirmation dialogue when you try to delete a torrent.
Its advised to leave it ticked to avoid accidental deleting of torrents.
• Alternate list background colour - This options creates a different shade of alternating background colour for the torrents in the list.
• Show categories on startup - Leave it ticked. This option specifies to open the "Left side torrent sorting pane"
• Receive messages from tracker - Keep this option ticked. It allows to receive and display tracker messages.
• Ignore message about timeouts - Tick this if you are receiving too many errors "The request to rTorrent has timed out". If ticked it will ignore those errors.
• Full render of large tables and Show Table contents while scrolling - These two options do the same thing but in a different way.
Full render of large tables specifies that if a large number (More than 100) of torrents are loaded in client all will be rendered to ruTorrent on startup.
Show Table contents while scrolling - this means table contents will be rendered as you scroll through the torrent list.
• Autoswitch to "log" tab - ruTorrent automatically switches to the log tab when an event occurs (Adding torrent,Timeout error,etc). If you don't want this to happen untick this option.
• Update GUI every and Request Time-out - Leave these values to default unless you are experiencing slow GUI problems. In that case try changing these values slightly to check if it improves the problem.
• Show details on start-up - Keep this ticked. It specifies to open to the right lower torrent details and log pane.
• Date Format - Choose the date format which suits you best.
• Show effects for UI elements - This option adds animated effects for opening/closing of dialogue boxes(Add/create/properties,etc dialogue boxes)
• If rTorrent is not available try again after - keep this to default 2-3 min value.
• Language - Choose from the available local languages if you want the ruTorrent interface options in the language you want.
• Theme - Choose from the available themes that suits you best.
• Speed pop-up list - This is the speed pop up list which appears when you right click on the Bottom status bar UL/DL icons.
This is the global speed throttle option and the available speed options can be changed in this section.
The default values are from 100KB/s to 1.2MB/s and you can change them to the numbers that suit you best. ( Numbers are in KB/S)
Settings --> Downloads
These settings are already set to optimal values as per seedbox specs by Ultraseedbox in .rtorrent.rc file so don't change these values.
Other
• Check hash after download - Its safe to leave this unticked. If ticked it will check for the hash intergrity of the downloaded data after its downloaded. Hash errors are rare so its redundant and resource consuming process and will slow your speeds during the hash checking process if left ticked.
Default directory for downloads - Its default data download directory, leave it to the default set directory.
Settings --> Connection
• Open listening port - The required ports are already forwarded by Ultraseedbox so it really does'nt matter if you tick or untick this.
• Port used for incoming connections - This setting is set in .rtorrent.rc file so leave it as it is.
• Randomize port each time rtorrent starts - If ticked it will change the port to other number from above listed port range everytime rtorrent restarts. Basically it makes no difference for a seedbox as required ports are open.
• Bandwidth Limiting
Global maximum upload/download rate (kb/s): [0:Unlimited] - This setting is set to a high number, do not change this number to 0, even though 0 stands for unlimited, for the throttle plugin to work this number needs to be any non-zero number. Even if you change it to zero the rtorrent still remains at that large non-zero number so changing it in ruTorrent is pointless.
• Other Limitations - These are set to optimum values so do not change them unless you know what you are doing.
Settings --> Bittorent
Addititonal bittorent features
• Enable DHT network - Leave this unticked as private trackers do not allow DHT . This is mainly useful for public torrents.
• Peer exchange - Leave this unticked as private trackers do not allow PE . This is mainly useful for public torrents.
• UDP port to use for DHT - Leave default as we are not going to use DHT anyway.
• IP/Hostname to report to tracker - 0.0.0.0 Do not change this as it will be considered as IP spoofing and might get you in trouble at private trackers.
Settings --> Advanced
DO NOT change anything in this section of settings as they are already set to optimum values and changing them will do more harm than good.
Change them only and only if know what you are doing .
Settings --> Accounts
Caution - Your logging IP to the tracker site will be your seedbox IP and many private trackers do not allow logging to site from seedbox IP's, so consult with the tracker staff before you use this feature.
After consulting with tracker staff if they allow you can tick and eneable the said tracker in Accounts section and enter your login credentials in the respective fields.
After settings account details in this tab it will enable you to use features like
A] Adding torrents via Add URL for trackers that don't allow downloading .torrent files without logging to the tracker site eg. FTN, IPT, TL
B] Search tracker sites for torrents directly from the ruTorrent interface and download them to seedbox. (Explained in Search feature in the tutorial below)
Settings --> Autotools
Enable these tools only if you need them.
Enable "Autolabel" feature, template - (Not of much use) Tick this if you want all the torrents added via ruTorrent web GUI to be autolabelled if no label is entered manually while adding torrent.
Template - The available templates are
{DIR} - If you choose another sub directory in the default downloads directory than that subdirectory is appended as label name to the torrent.
eg. say ur default downlaod directory in .rtorrent.rc is home/ultraseebox/downloads and while adding torrent you choose home/ultraseedbox/downloads/Music as download directory than "Music" is the variable in path name and it is appended as the label name automatically.
{TRACKER}- If you use this template as autolabel, the torrent is appended with the trackers name as its label.
{NOW} - This will append date of adding torrent as label name. You can change the date format by changing the template as {NOW:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M} just change the date factors the way that suits you.
Enable "AutoMove" feature - This is an really useful feature if you want to set rsync/ftp folder synchronisation for automatic downloading of files from a certain folder. This combined with autodl tools like RSS/Autodl-Irssi is very useful.
What it does is after a torrent is finished downloading it moves the data files to another folder without interrupting seeding.
Path to finished downloads - CHoose a directory where you want to move the finished torrents data automatically.
Operation type - Move : Moves the data files from downloaded directory to the set finished directory. (This option is preferred)
Hard Link : The data files are not moved but a hard link is created in the finished directory pointing to the actual files.
Copy : The data files are COPIED to the finished directory.
Soft Link : The data files are not moved but a soft link is created in the finished directory pointing to the actual files.
Enable "Autowatch" feature - This is exactly same as rTorrent's watch directory adding torrent method. Only difference is its a network of watch directories in a base directory. It is useful to organise torrents if you add torrents to seedbox via ftp.
Path to base watch directory - This is the path to the directory which contains sub directories which you will be using as watch directories. eg . base directory home/ultraseedbox/downloads
Downloads folder contains sub directories say eg . Music, Movies, TVShow. So if i add a .torrent file to Music folder via ftp it will be automatically start downloaded and the data of that torrent will be placed in the very same Music folder and .torrent file is deleted automatically once its passed to rTorrent.
Keep in only subdirectories of base directory act as watch folders, the base directory itself is not a watch folder.
Tick start downloading automatically.
Settings --> Cookies
Here you enter the cookies for your trackers which will be used to perform tracker actions requiring cookies (Adding torrent via URL/Searching torrents on tracker in ruTorrent GUI itself,etc)
Format of cookies - The format of cookies is different for every tracker and to find out the format go to ruTorrent settings --> Search --> Engines Private --> Click on the private tracker name from the drop down list and it will show the format of cookies to be entered in the Cookies section
How to obtain cookie values for the tracker?
I will explain the process for firefox and it is similar for most of the browsers.
Firefox --> Tools --> Options --> Privacy --> Click on "remove individual cookies"
Enter tracker name in the Search filed (Do not include WWW, just search for the domain name)
It will filter out other cookies and bring up the searched domain cookies, click on the cookies with name "uid" to get the uid number and on "pass" to get the pass.
The uid and pass values are the ones that appear in the lower half in the line of "content", copy those values and save them.
Now construct the cookie structure as per the format we found earlier from the ruTorrent search settings section
For iptorrents the format being
Host|pass=passvalue;uid=uidvalue;
So it becomes for eg.
iptorrents.com|pass=yourpasskeyvaluehere;uid=youruidvaluehere;
www.iptorrents.com|pass=yourpasskeyvaluehere;uid=youruidvaluehere;
also add the another line if the domain uses www, same cookie values will work for subdomains with www, but keep in mind www.iptorrents.com is subdomain of iptorrents.com but iptorrents.me is a totally different domain and you will need different cookies for that domain.
Settings --> File Manager (Explained in file manager section of tutorial)
Settings --> Retrackers
Again this is a feature only useful for public trackers. What it does is it appends all the tracker urls listed in Add Announces field to all the new added torrents. Private trackers do not allow this and is considered a type of cheating.
• Don't touch private torrents - Keep it ticked
• Add Announces - Leave it blank
• Remove Announces - Leave it blank
Settings --> Feeds
This settings defines the update interval in minutes for RSS feeds. Optimum time is 10-15 min , don't set it to value lower than 10 as it will hammer the server and might get you in trouble at trackers.
If you need better upload speeds on new torrents its advised to use Autodl-Irssi which catches torrents in real time without any delay as RSS.
• Update Interval(m) - 15
Settings --> Scheduler
This works exactly like utorrent's scheduler feature and has no real use for a seedbox.
In case still you want to use it tick enable scheduler and change the required boxes by double clicking on them in the Scheduler table.
The colours of the box corresponds to the behaviour(Unlimited/turn off/Seeding only/Limited1 etc.) of the seedbox for that block of time on that day.
Settings --> Search (Explained in the search section of tutorial)
Settings --> History (Explained in the History section of tutorial)
Settings --> Channels
Channels
Name - Name of the channel : Set a name for the channel from which you can easily know the settings for that channel eg. up5MBdown10MB
UL (KB/s) - sets the upload speed cap for that channel (0 denotes unlimited so the minimum working throttle speed is 1KB/s)
DL (KB/s) - sets the download speed cap for that channel (0 denotes unlimited so the minimum working throttle speed is 1KB/s)
Default channel - If you set a default channel, all the added torrents will be assigned to that channel automatically.
You can create customized channels with both UL/DL speeds set according to your needs.
To set a torrent to a channel right click on the torrent --> set channel --> select the channel from the list ( That torrents speeds will be throttled according to the channel speed settings)
Settings --> Unpack
Autounpacking can come in handy for scene trackers where you can set Autolabelling for the scene torrents and add them to the auto unpack.
Enable autounpacking if torrents label matches - Enter the label for which you the torrents will be autounpacked (Eg. a label you use for a screne tracker)
Unpack to - The directory path where the content will be unpacked
Append to path name when unpacking data
Torrent label/Torrent name - Ticking these options will append the label, torrent name to the directory of the unpacked data.
Settings --> Ratio groups
This is an excellent plugin useful to automate torrent removal after specified conditions are met.
Name - Use a self descriptive name for channel, eg. if you are settings a ratio group for a specific tracker name is something like TrackerName1
Min % - Min percentage of the torrent data size to be uploaded before it triggers action.
Max % - Max percentage of the torrent data size to be uploaded before it triggers action.
UL,MB - Min amount of data in MB to be uploaded before it triggers action.
Time,h - Seedtime in hours after which the action will be triggered.
Action - This options decides what to to do to the torrent when it reaches the trigger value
> Stop - Stops the torrent
> Stop & clear group - Stops torrent and clears it from the ratio group tag.
> Remove - removes only torrent from the client
> remove data - removes torrent plus datat associated with it.
> Set channel - sets channel on reaching trigger value/s.
Default ratio group - Don't set (If you set a default group all added torrents will be automatically assigned to that ratio group)
To manually assign ratio group, right click on any torrent/s and use option set ratio group and tick the group you want to assign the torrent to.
So how this works?
"Seed this torrent until it's ratio reach Min and with that uploaded not less than UL megabytes. Stop seeding any way if the ratio has reached Max".
eg. For a ratio group i set min % 200, max% 300, UL,MB - 1000, Time,h - 48 Action - remove data
This means for a torrent in this ratio group if a torrent seeds to a ratio of 2 with data uploaded above 1000MB it will trigger the action and remove torrent along with its data.
If the torrent seeds to a ratio of 2 with data uploaded less than 1000MB, it will not trigger action yet but when it reaches max % ratio of 3 it will trigger the action even if the data uploaded is below 1000MB.
The UL,MB is unnecessary option as torrent sizes differ and there is no point in setting ratiogroup based on total uploaded data as all trackers take in to account either ratio/seedtime or both.
eg. for a tracker which has a H&R system based on torrent ratio/seedtime, say BTN which requires either to seed above ratio 1 or for 24 hrs.
So the settings will be
Min % - 120, Max % - 120, UL,MB - 0, Time,h - 28
100% equals ratio 1 but we are setting it to 120% to allow a safe margin and time to 28 hrs with 4 hrs safe margin accounting for failed tracker announces/downtime,etc
Settings --> Screenshots ( Explained in the screenshots section of the tutorial)
12 -
Clicking on this help ? button will bring up a dialog box with shortcut options
The shortcuts listed whose function is listed in black colour will work with the keyboard shortcuts listed in that box.
The greyed out description means the keyboard shortcuts will not work for that option but clicking on the greyed out function will perform that function.
13 - Search Torrents
This feature allows you to search torrents Locally (Those already loaded on the seedbox)/Public Trackers/Private Trackers
Searching Locally so say you have 500 torrents loaded in your seedbox and need to find a particular torrent by name, this feature can come in handy
Searching torrents on private trackers.
For this function to work you need to either enter your tracker site login credentials/ Tracker cookies in the ruTorrent settings.
ruTorrent settings --> Search
Common limitations
Result limit - 50 (Use a reasonable number here 50-100 so that the results don't create a foot long of results page)
Engines (public)
Click on the public tracker engines from the dropdown list and tick or untick enabled depending upon if you need or don't need to search from these trackers.
Include in to ALL category - ticking this will include this tracker in search if you search for something with the option "Search in all trackers"
Result Limit - Number of results cap from the said tracker
Engines (Private)
Select the private trackers you want to enable from the dropdown list and tick enable (by default all private trackers are disabled). Depending on the tracker you will need to either account credentials or site cookies in the respective sections of the settings, the format of cookies will be
specified when you select a tracker from drop down list. Keep in mind the cookies need to be entered in specified format in cookies section (ruTorrent settings --> Cookies) or account credentials entered in accounts section of settings
eg. Searching for torrents from IPT
Entered cookies and enabled Iptorrents in search settings.
Clicked the magnifying glass search icon in the right top corner --> Private --> Ticked Iptorrents
Entered - search keywords
Category - All
and click on the green arrow
It will display the search results from the site right in the ruTorrent interface
You can right click on any result and load the torrent right from the ruTorrent GUI and it will be automatically fetched and passed to the client for downloading.
Open in in browser will open that torrent link in new tab.
Remove item - will remove selected search result from the list.
Url info - will list torrent details and .torrent download url's in log tab.
Each of your search action will create new results lists sorted under the search category on left side pane.
Right click on any search results list
Refresh tag - reruns the same search and refreshes results.
Remove tag - removes the search tag along with the result list from the torrent pane.
**Status Pane**
Disk space - Indicates the percentage of the consumed disk space. If you hover cursor over this area it will display the exact amount of consumed space out of total space eg. 210 GB/250 GB
CPU Load - Displays approximate CPU load. It increase while force rechecking, creating torrent, etc.
UL Speed - It displays current realtime global upload speed, it can be capped by right clicking in this speed area. Total uploaded data value is for current rTorrent session, it resets if rTorrrent restarts.
DL Speed - It displays current realtime global download speed, it can be capped by right clicking in this speed area. Total downloaded data value is for current rTorrent session, it resets if rTorrrent restarts.
Port - Green tick sign is for correctly forwarded open port, yellow triangle for unknown status, red stop sign for closed port.
rTorrent/libtorrent version - From the eg. rtorrent version is 0.9.3 and libtorrent version is 0.13.3
Time - Current time for the client.
**9 - Autodl-Irssi**
This is an excellent plugin which monitors the irc in realtime and grabs torrents as soon as they are released on trackers thereby increasing the chances of reaching maximum upload
data on these torrents.
Plus it offers the solution of completely automating the torrent adding/deleting process thus minimizing the time you need to spend managing the seedbox.
Autodl-irssi + Autotools + Ratiogroups + rsync can offer a complete seedbox solution to downloading required content automagically to your pc without needing to either log in to tracker site or even opening ruTorrent GUI
With these tools combined you can have the content delivered to your harddrive ready to watch automatically.
(Complete setup for auto seedbox management will be explained in another tutorial)
Keep in mind each tracker has different announce formats and so the filters setting need to be optimized for the tracker you want to use it for, so you will need to search the tracker forums for better filter guides for that tracker
General guidelines and explanation about Autodl-Irssi settings.
Click Autodl-irssi icon --> Preferences --->General
Maximum saved releases : 1000
Save download history : Tick if you need the download history (doesn't matter even if you untick it)
Automatic updates - ASk (Autodl-Irssi developement has stopped so there won't be any new official new versions)
Preferences --->Action
This tab is important so fill correctly
Choose .torrent action : rtorrent (Save to watch folder option is useful to use this plugin with deluge, will be explained in Deluge tutorial, other options are not much useful for a seedbox user)
Folder : your default download folder
Label : Choose any label you want ( all downloads via irssi will have that label and can be easily pointed out from manually added torrents using this feature)
ratio group : None ( Choose other ratio group only if you want to automatically stop torrents after they hit certain ratio)
ruT channel : None (Choose other channel in case you want to limit upload/download bandwidth on irssi torrents)
Priority : Normal
Leave those last two boxes unticked
Preferences ---> Webui
Preferences ---> FTP
Preferences ---> IRC --> Auto connect to IRC servers and channels (Keep this ticked)
Preferences ---> Programs
Preferences ---> Advanced
^ Leave all the remaining settings default (these settings are for using Autodl with utorrent on home pc,FTP uploading .torrent files somewhere,Relaying irc out put,etc)
Next thing to do is find out the irc server details of the tracker you want to use autodl for.
Autodl-Irssi---> Announces channels --> Scroll through the tracker list and click on the desired tracker name --> Note the server and channel details as we are going to use it next.
eg . Iptorrents details are
server - irc.iptorrents.com
Channel - #ipt.announce
You should also check on the tracker site if the irc server and announce channel details are correct.
Setting up server details for the tracker.
Autodl-Irssi --> IRC Servers
Click on new and enter the details we obtained above
Server - This is where you put the server address, i.e irc.server.com
Port - This is where you specify the port (leaving this blank uses 6667)
SSL - Check this box if you are connecting to an SSL server port (Not recommended as ssl is known to create connection problems)
Nick - This is the irc username for this server. Mostly this is just your sitenick for that tracker.
Password - This is the nickserv password you used while registering to the trackers irc network. If you have not registered to tracker irc network yet, it is recommended you do it as per guide on that tracker using an irc client on your pc.
Email - This is the email address your user is registered under. This field can be left blank as email is only required while registering your nick to the irc network.
IRC Channel setting :: Most of this fields can be left blank depending on the tracker in question.
Channel Select - Marked with #1 in the picture above, this allows you to select channels which are already configured in order to edit settings.
New - Creates a new channel entry
Remove - Removes the currently selected channel
Channel - Channel name, i.e #ipt.announce
Password - If the irc channel requires a password to join, it goes here (Most trackers do not have any password for channel, instead they use invite command based security of channels)
Invite Command - If you must enter a specific command to join a channel, it goes here, i.e "/msg SOMEONE something password"
Invite HTTP URL - if your channel requires a websites url, it goes here
Invite HTTP Header - website header
Invite HTTP Data - Invite website data
Next setting is entering your tracker credentials (Either authkey+passkey or cookie) that will be used by autodl-irssi to download .torrent files automatically.
Autodl-Irssi --> Trackers
Scroll to the tracker name and select it and it will provide a description about what info needs to be entered and how to obtain it.
eg. for iptorrents it requires uid and passkey to entered from the cookie.
Next step is setting up filters
This is the most important settings and is little bit complex, also how the filter settings work differ from tracker to tracker, so you will need to checkout Autodl filter guides on the tracker wiki/forums
Here are the basic rules of filter settings that apply to every tracker.
> There are two types of wildcards that work with autodl-irssi
? : any one character (Note: If ? is included there needs to be one character occupying its space in real announce i.e h?264 will not match h264]
* : any number of any characters or nothing ( so h*264 will match both h.264 and h264)
Wildcards are only allowed in specific fields of the filter (If you hover over a field it will say wildcards are allowed for that field)
Plus thing to note is ? wildcard do not work in some of the wildcard allowed fields either, we will be using wildcards only in Match releases field as its mostly unnecessary anywhere else
> If a field is left blank the default behaviour of autodl-irssi for that particular field is to ignore that field completely and DOWNLOAD everything that matches other fields
eg. IF you create a filter with all fields blank and just choose Match sites : ipt ,it will download each and every release from ipt
In short using only wildcard * in a field to download everything is not warranted and is not recommended as leaving a field blank is better way to do that.
> The variables in all the fields are set to use Rule:Any, only Music-->Tags/Except tags provides a option of Rule: ANY OR ALL
What this means: If you enter 720p, 1080p, 1080i in the resolution field it will match a torrent if its EITHER of these listed resolutions i.e Rule: ANY of the listed resolutions.
Whereas only Tags/Except Tags provides the option to use Rule:ALL So whenever using Rule:ALL you must be careful what you enter in the Tags field
> All fields are case insensitive so Breaking.Bad* is same as BREakINg.bAd*
> You can set multiple filters, usually its good to set one filter per show. Each filter works independent of all the other filters. Plus you can set different download folder for each filter for better organistaion.
Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting. - Read the usage section of Autodl-Irssi at this link to know more about filter fields.
Autodl-Irssi log tab
This tab logs the autodl events and posts the log if a torrent is matched and passed to seedbox, error messages if any, monitoring channel messages, etc.
Clear - Erases the Autodl-Irssi log tab contents.
Update - Checks for newer versions.
What's new - Checks for new messages/updates from the Autodl-Irssi developers.
Backup - Will prompt you to save the autodl.cfg file which contains the autodl-irssi settings/filter settings which can be used later.
Restore - Use browse button to navigate to the autodl.cfg file on your pc and click restore to apply the back-upped settings at a later date if you need them.
**8 - RSS Downloader
This is better explained by the developers here
