Arch Linux

calef13

Member

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 142

[SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

Hi,

I want to centralise my torrents onto my home server. It's running arch and I use ssh to administer it. I was wondering if anyone could recommend bittorrent clients for this situation. I doubt I could ssh in and access an ncurses gui or something, but maybe someone here has a better solution. I though of backgrounding a command line client but this would lead to a separate instance for each torrent which makes them hard to manage, so do I have no choice but to use a web based client?

Last edited by calef13 (2008-01-11 16:06:54)

dir

Member

From: dotph

Registered: 2007-10-10

Posts: 20

Re: [SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

screen + rtorrent / torrentflux + mainline

Bestiapeluda

Member

From: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Registered: 2007-10-16

Posts: 181

Re: [SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

I have a server like that running rtorrent.
And screen to detach it.

tjb0647

Member

From: Kongsberg, Norway

Registered: 2007-11-05

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

you can also try tf-b4rt which is a branch off of torrentflux http://tf-b4rt.berlios.de/

bionnaki

Member

Registered: 2006-09-05

Posts: 289

Re: [SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

rtorrent + screen is hands-down the best.

gunnihinn

Member

From: Torreón, Mexico

Registered: 2007-10-28

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

Another vote for rtorrent + screen. I start it on login and have it watch a specific folder for torrents, life is very easy.

Last edited by gunnihinn (2008-01-11 07:21:22)

daf666

Member

Registered: 2007-04-08

Posts: 470

Website

Re: [SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

Actually, if it is a strong enough hardware, you can run any GUI application that you'd like with vnc (like I do Ktorrent and aMule on my headless Arch server).
Here's how you do it:

1. Install basic xorg, a basic window manager and tight vnc on the headless server:

pacman -S xorg openbox tightvnc

2. Run the server once so it will create ~/.vnc and setup passwords

vncserver

3. Setup the vnc startup script (so you wont need to ssh and manually activate it after the headless reboots).
Call it vnc and put it in /etc/rc.d/
Dont forget to set it up to run at startup in rc.conf
replace daf666 with your username!

#!/bin/bash

# general config
. /etc/rc.conf
. /etc/rc.d/functions

case "$1" in
  start)
    stat_busy "Starting vncserver"
      su daf666 -c "/usr/bin/vncserver"
    if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
      stat_fail
    else
      add_daemon vnc
      stat_done
    fi
    ;;
  stop)
    stat_busy "Stopping vncserver"
    killall Xvnc
    if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
      stat_fail
    else
      rm_daemon vnc
      stat_done
    fi
    ;;
  restart)
    $0 stop
    sleep 3
    $0 start
    ;;
  *)
    echo "usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}" 
esac

4. To setup openbox to run at startup insert 'openbox' in your ~/.vnc/xstartup

5. Reboot the headless

6. Install tightvnc on your desktop machine and connect to the headless: vncviewer 6.6.6.6:1 (replace with ur IP and screen num)

7. Install ktorrent or what ever.. then it will keep running after you disconnect

calef13

Member

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 142

Re: [SOLVED]bittorrent for a headless server

Thanks everyone I'll give screen, rtorrent and mainline a look. I am quite pleased there is obviously a decent solution to my problem I was thinking my only choice was a webserver.

Calef13