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Turn off your PC and BitTorrent from a Linux console with rTorrent
This week's series of tips is all about downloading files via BitTorrent. We'll highlight ways in which to torrent more efficiently, obtain higher download speeds, and generally make the whole process easier. For more tech tips, check our Tips index.Only noobs BitTorrent from their main Windows or Mac computer! Torrenting uses a lot of system resources and can significantly slow down your computer if you have a few torrents open. Additionally, you don't want to upload lots of data while you play games, or while other people in the house are using the Internet -- and really, leaving your computer on over night to download torrents is rather uneconomical.
The best solution, short of getting a VPS and doing your torrenting remotely, is to install a headless Linux or BSD box and control all of your torrents via the text-only console. Now, this isn't a guide on how to set up your own Linux box (there are hundreds of them online, just search) -- but basically any old, unused computer will do. Ideally you want it to be headless (i.e. without a monitor), so that you can put it under the stairs and so that it draws as little power as possible. If you can't choose a distro, Ubuntu Desktop is just fine.
Once you have a Linux box, log in via SSH and install rTorrent, which is by far the best console-based BitTorrent client -- and there are packages for every popular distro. Next, transfer some torrent files onto the Linux box: you can transfer them from your PC using FTP or SFTP (with Filezilla), or download them directly, via the console, with wget.
From the console, type "rtorrent" and press Enter. Hit Enter again and type in the location of your first torrent file. Press Down to select the new torrent, and Ctrl+S to start it. Ctrl+D stops a torrent, and if you do it again it removes the torrent. For advanced functionality, like setting upload and download throttles, check the rTorrent User Guide (and note that ^ refers to Ctrl).
Once you're comfortable with torrenting via your Linux console, you can turn your PC off at night and let the headless box do all of the work. With a little hacking, you can make rTorrent watch a directory, and automatically begin downloading when new torrent files appear.
Finally, it's worth noting that a Network Attached Storage (NAS) box can also double up as your headless torrent box. Check our guide on how to revitalize your old computers for more info.
Comments
25
Subscribe to commentsunclebobbycFeb 1st 2011 2:11PM
You really should also add-on wTorrent so you can just use the web front end to rTorrent. http://www.wtorrent-project.org
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 1st 2011 2:21PM
@unclebobbyc Good tip :) Thanks.
kojo87Feb 1st 2011 2:19PM
torrenting uses a ton of system resources? news to me. i almost always have uTorrent running in the background when i am playing non-online games and never notice a difference. even if you do have a separate dedicated torrent box you are still sucking your own bandwidth so this doesn't really solve anything in that respect. if you are dedicated enough to run a torrent box you are probably dedicated enough to get a VPS which would be way more to the point.
are VPS providers cool with you running torrents on their servers or is it more of a don't ask don't tell policy?
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 1st 2011 2:23PM
@kojo87 It depends on what it's doing -- if everything's in memory, you won't experience a hard drive grind, and performance will probably be unaffected. If you are seeding 5 torrents, then the hard drive has to constantly seek to read the chunks.
Then, of course, hashing can really interfere with games, Photoshop, encoding tasks, etc.
As for whether it's legit -- it depends on what you torrent...!
(In most cases, unless you move huge amounts of data, an ISP/datacenter won't really care. I might be operating on old data though.)
RususeruruFeb 1st 2011 2:29PM
@kojo87 I have a feeling they would prefer you not hog IO resources, but as long as they are getting paid it won't be a huge deal. Just don't expect them to shield you if you get busted torrenting james cameron's latest blockbuster.
emmzeeFeb 1st 2011 3:29PM
@kojo87 I agree with other commenters that usually the host won't care, but remember a VPS is shared with many other customers. So if the host feels you are negatively impacting the other customers they can and will shut your account down, sometimes without warning. Signing up for a VPS and using it for torrenting is (in most cases) using it for a purpose it was not intended, so, use it as such at your own risk. Also, beware hosts which offer "unlimited" space and/or bandwidth, because there is no such thing, and these hosts will likely shut down your account at the first sign of high usage. Unmetered is different; these hosts (probably rare for VPS) offer you as much bandwidth as you're able to use through their limited upload/download speeds.
OkändFeb 2nd 2011 6:31AM
@Sebastian Anthony I really like ruTorrent. For those used to the µTorrent UI that's probably a better choice.
Jim CoferFeb 1st 2011 4:02PM
"leaving your computer on over night to download torrents is rather uneconomical."
Sooooooo... running TWO computers is somehow better? And what's wrong with RDPing into an old XP box? I'm not anti-Linux, I just don't see the point in this.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 2nd 2011 5:19AM
@Jim Cofer Well, an old, headless Linux box might draw 100 watts (and probably less). A modern desktop machine (especially if you have discrete graphics) will draw 250+ watts.
An old Windows machine + RDP is fine! This was just about rTorrent :)
DougalFeb 1st 2011 10:27PM
I simply place uTorrent (it doesn't need to be installed) on a separate disk, along with the various folders used for torrent storage. It runs 24/7 and has little if any impact on the PC on which it's run, or the wider LAN. At any time, it's usually seeding 6 to 10 torrents.
Also, because my PC's are typically on 24/7, I use the time I am sleeping, to allocate unused CPU cycles to a distributed research research project.
kojo87Feb 1st 2011 11:36PM
@Dougal
thats what i do. i have my torrents running on a separate HDD while my games and applications run on my RAID0 array. i've never noticed any impact on my PC's performance (other than bandwidth if you count that) with this set up. and with uTorrent's built in folder labeling it makes for a very clean and easy to use file system.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 2nd 2011 5:18AM
@kojo87 Yep, separate hard disks would definitely go some way to alleviating any bottlenecks!
RyzvonusefFeb 2nd 2011 2:51AM
Gee Seb, you could have told me last week, when I was trying torrent some lectures from uni!
I wonder if you can fix it so that it automatically restarts and starts torrenting after a power outage, since that's pretty common in my part of the world.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 2nd 2011 5:21AM
@Ryzvonusef Yeah, it's easy enough to make rTorrent (or uTorrent, if you're a Windows user) load when you boot the computer. Google...!
Torrenting from university is the best thing ever!
dottedfishFeb 3rd 2011 2:00AM
@Sebastian Anthony
250Watts? Could you elaborate what kind of PC you have that draws that much in idle? ;)
Any decent setup of e.g. an average i5 + a good GPU draws much less than 100W in idle. To be frank, an i3 with a disk could go below 20Watts and that is not headless.
While it's true that some people do have old hardware that they can re-use it's also true that most of torrenting doesn't have to take place outside of regular pc-usage times. Usually you'll be just fine when you throttle the up and download speeds so that only 70% of your line's being used.
The main point here is that PC's aren't iPhones or something. They are designed to multitask.
- You save energy because you multitask instead of running tasks seperately which means it will take longer to complete them
- You also save time because you don't have to administer multiple machines (and eventually risk them because you don't have a clue how to actually operate a linux box)
- Torrent apps like µTorrent are absolutely lightweight and don't stress the system at all. A single browser tab causes more trouble than µTorrent with 3 running torrents (and depending on your line you won't even be able to run more than 3 at the same time anyways)
This said I don't see a point in this for the average user at all. In fact if you think it through it appears that not the windows users who multitask are noobs but maybe those who put a tremendous effort into it without any real benefit. But thanks for insulting the people who actually use their machines efficiently as noobs. Tells us a lot about you.
OkändFeb 2nd 2011 6:32AM
@Okänd Forgot the link.
http://code.google.com/p/rutorrent/
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 2nd 2011 6:34AM
@Okänd Looks cool, but it's a GUI! This was all about doing it via console, so you don't need a monitor attached :)
ten-sevenFeb 2nd 2011 12:11PM
Been there, doing that.
1. Run rtorrent in "screen" so your linux box can be truly headless; screen lets you detach, like TS for the console
2. Set up separate directories, one for dropping .torrent files into, and one for downloading into; configure rtorrent to watch the "drop" directory so it can auto-start downloading
3. Use samba on your local network to give your home system(s) access to drop .torrents into the drop directory, and copy off downloads (especially if you're using windows)
4. Install dropbox (available for linux too) and link the drop and download directories under the dropbox tree so you can initiate and retrieve downloads almost as easily as using samba on your local network
5. Consider using "rtorstat" to generate a static status page every few minutes; make it appear under dropbox so you can see status using your mobile phone (geek-factor++)
6. wtorrent is a no-brainer
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 2nd 2011 11:29AM
@ten-seven You're stealing my tips for the rest of the week!!
No, just kidding -- nice setup :)
ten-sevenFeb 2nd 2011 12:10PM
@Sebastian Anthony Sorry about that. I'm sure once people got into trying this, and had a few ideas, they'd stumble on my tips just like I did. I just advanced the evolution a bit.