bittorrent-downloader - download files using a scatter-gather
network
btdownloadheadless [ option ... ] URL
btdownloadheadless [ option ... ] filename
btdownloadcurses [ option ... ] URL
btdownloadcurses [ option ... ] filename
btdownloadgui [ option ... ] URL
btdownloadgui [ option ... ] filename
This manual page documents briefly the btdownloadheadless,
btdownloadcurses, and btdownloadgui commands. This manual page
was written for the Debian distribution because the original program does
not have a manual page.
These are all programs that allow a user to download files using
bittorrent, a peer to peer, scatter-gather network protocol. They all have
the same options.
These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long
options starting with two dashes (`-'). A summary of options is included
below.
- --responsefile
filename
- treat filename as a file which the server response was stored in.
If this option is used, no filename or URL should be present on the
command line.
- --url url
- retrieve the torrent info file from url. If this option is used, no
filename or URL should be present on the command line.
- -i ip | --ip
ip
- report ip as your IP to the tracker
- --bind
ip
- bind to ip instead of the default
- --minport
portnum
- set portnum as the minimum port to listen on, counts up if
unavailable (default 6881)
- --maxport
portnum
- set portnum as the maximum port to listen on (default 6889)
- --saveas
filename
- store the downloaded file to filename, instead of querying user
(gui) or using the filename stored in the torrent info file
- --max_uploads
num
- Only allow num uploads at once (default 4)
- --max_upload_rate
kbytes
- maximum rate to upload at in kilobytes, 0 means no limit (default 0)
- --keepalive_interval
secs
- pause secs seconds between sending keepalives (default 120.0)
- --download_slice_size
bytes
- query for bytes bytes per request (default 32768)
- --request_backlog
num
- keep num requests in a single pipe at once (default 5)
- --max_message_length
bytes
- set bytes to the maximum length prefix encoding you'll accept over
the wire - larger values get the connection dropped (default 8388608)
- --timeout
secs
- wait secs before closing sockets which nothing has been receieved
on (default 300.0)
- --timeout_check_interval
secs
- check whether connections have timed out every secs seconds
(default 60.0)
- --max_slice_length
bytes
- requests from peers larger than bytes bytes are ignored (default
131072)
- --max_rate_recalculate_interval
secs
- connections that pause longer than secs seconds are given reduced
rate (default 15.0)
- --max_rate_period
secs
- set secs to the maximum amount of time to guess the current rate
estimate represents (default 20.0)
- --upload_rate_fudge
secs
- set the time equivalent of writing to kernel-level TCP buffer to
secs (default 5.0)
- --display_interval
secs
- update displayed information every secs seconds (default 0.1)
- --rerequest_interval
secs
- request more peers every secs seconds (default 300)
- --min_peers
num
- do not rerequest if we have num peers already (default 20)
- --http_timeout
secs
- wait secs seconds before assuming a http connection has timed out
(default 60)
- --snub_time
secs
- wait secs seconds for data to come in over a connection before
assuming it's semi-permanently choked (default 30.0)
- --spew 1 | 0
- whether to display diagnostic info to stdout. This option is not useful
when using btdownloadcurses or btdownloadgui. (default 0)
- --max_initiate
num
- stop initiating new connections when we have num peers (default
40)
- --check_hashes
1 | 0
- whether to check hashes on disk (defaults to 1)
- --report_hash_failures
1 | 0
- whether to report to the user that hash failuers occur (non-fatal, common
error) (default 0)
- --rarest_first_priority_cutoff
num
- the number of peers which need to have a piece before other partials take
priority over rarest first (default 3)
bttrack(1), btmakemetafile(1),
btlaunchmany(1).
More information on the BitTorrent protocol used for
distributing files is available at
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/protocol.html
You will also find a full description on the advantages of the
protocol in the academic paper Incentives Build Robustness in
BitTorrent available at
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/bittorrentecon.pdf
This manual page was written by Michael Janssen
<jamuraa@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used
by others).