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| | | | FAQ Revisions | Editors: somitho  , dbmaven , swintec
Last modified on 2009-11-16 01:31:38
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10. Bittorrent·Where can I get BitTorrent?
·What is Bit Torrent?
·How does it work?
·Where can I download it?
·Where can I find some files to download?
·What is BT doing when I download a file?
·How do I uninstall Bit Torrent?
·My download is slow
·How come nobody can download from me?
·Unanswered Question
·I get blue screens/reboots/lockups
·How do I make and share a torrent file?
·ERROR IOError - [Errno 13] Permission Denied
·Recommended alternative BT clients?
·BT and router problems?
| | | You can download BitTorrent from the BitTorrent Website. BitTorrent versions are available for Windows, Mac OSX & Linux
»www.bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html
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by Hugh Janus edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-20 17:30:08 | | | Bit Torrent is an open-source file-sharing application like no other. It integrates itself into your browser and associates itself with files ending in ".torrent". The program was written by Bram Cohen and carries an MIT license.
This allows people to distribute files amongst the net without paying for massive amounts of bandwidth.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:00:43 | | | The BT software makes it very simplistic for people to use. All you need to do is find a site, that contains the .torrent file. Web sites that have this .torrent file contain a tracker. The tracker then tracks who all is downloading that file and who all is uploading that file for easy distribution-management amongst other people. It will automatically find new sources to grab parts of the file while downloading. You can literally just set it and forget it.
You may see the term "seed" being used. A seed is a person who has a completely finished file who then joins the "swarm". A swarm is best described as a series of seeds who are all using at least some of their upload to transmit the file to others who are downloading it.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:01:06 | | | There are several clients that you can use to download. Many of them, come as their own package and do not require the original client to be installed. Here's a list of most of the known Bit Torrent apps.
The Original Client
Burst
*Many people feel that they get faster speeds with this one. Can't hurt to try it.
BT++
*Another popular one that people can use to throttle their upload, with a few other features
Bit Torrent Experimental Client
Carrafix
*Note: This really isn't a Bit Torrent client, but helps with the way traffic shaping is used over Bit Torrent on Macintosh OSX. It helps transmission efficiency.
TorrentSpy
*Note: It's not actually a Bit Torrent client. It will launch whatever BT client you have installed. This software is useful for checking the status of your BT downloads and uploads.
TheSHAD0W's client
*Just like the Bit Torrent Experimental Client but with more useful features.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-12-06 02:14:45 | | | As you've probably guessed by now, there's no search feature within the Bit Torrent client to look for files. You'll need to download a .torrent file from a website that's archiving some Bit Torrent files. Issues with available web-site bandwidth, along with threats from the MPAA, have it made difficult for a BT site to stay alive. You'll have to check to see what site people are currently using. I won't be posting up any links because they'll probably not be up long enough to do anyone any good. Just ask which sites people are currently using to download files.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:01:43 | | | When you begin downloading a file with BT, it will allocate a part of your hard drive for the file. This means that if you went to see the file's size after it was done allocating, it would be the same size (in bytes) as the file you're downloading. It then hashes the file. Hashing the file, fills the file up with bad data. When you download a file with BT, it downloads the file in pieces. These pieces are distributed in various parts of the file, because you never download from start to end. If you were to pause the download, and then resume, then it would have to check for all the hashes in the file so it would know which data was good (already downloaded) and which was bad (needs to be downloaded). This is why your hard drive will go crazy each time you download a file.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:01:53 | | | *For Windows Users:
Go to Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. There should exist an entry for BitTorrent. If it's not there, suspect an incorrect install. You can always reinstall the latest version and then uninstall it.
If you know what you are doing, you can manually remove BitTorrent by deleting the directory C:\Program Files\BitTorrent\ (substituting the actual location of your Program Files dir) and removing the following registry keys:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.torrent
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/x-bittorrent
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\bittorrent
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\BitTorrent
*For Mac OS X
Simply drag the application to the trash. If you also wish to delete the preferences, trash the file ~/Library/Preferences/BitTorrent.plist as well.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:02:07 | | | There are a few things that can cause a slow download. Some computers have problems when you max out your upload. If you notice that your upload is maxed out, and your download is equal or less than your upload, try throttling your upload speed to 75% of your rated upload speed. You'll need one of the alternative clients to throttle your speeds. Also, if you're downloading a file that does not have many *seeds, then your download speed will be affected by how much you upload. This is to give better prioritization to those who are helping the cause, while discouraging leeching. If there is no bandwidth-availability issues then it won't matter if you upload or not. It's recommended to leave Bit Torrent running for a few hours after you're done downloading a file, to allow people to download from you.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:02:22 | | | Check your firewall and make sure that you're not blocking the specified ports for Bit Torrent. If you're using a NAT firewall, make sure that you enable port forwarding. Some of the older BT clients are only set to use ports 6881-6889. Version 3.2+ is set to use ports 6881-6999. As a regular user, you really only need to enable as many ports as you're going to have as downloads. Many people are fine with using 6881-6889.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:02:33 | | | http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/ is a wonderful site regarding technical problems with your BT client. If you can't get your question answered in this FAQ, then check this site out. If you still can't get it answered, then feel free to ask in the forums.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-21 17:02:41 | | | Some network cards and DSL modems have buggy drivers. Common symptoms include a blue screen (with a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error) or a spontaneous reboot. Here are some common culprets:
Linksys LNE100TX model 5, Linksys NC100, Skymaster SK1207E, Planex FNW-9803-T, or any other network card based on the AN983B chipset by ADMtek, sometimes also sold under the no-name "Asound" or "Fast" brands. Note that this includes some motherboards' built-in Ethernet controllers, such as: MSI (Microstar) MS-6378, DFI NS70-EL & AZ30-EL, USI PM-845, Fujitsu D1451. The solution seems to be to install one of the following drivers from ADMtek: Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 98. These are drivers from the chipset manufacturer and are Microsoft certified. Use these drivers in place of any other driver for those cards, including the latest version from Linksys.
Netgear FA311 - Try this version (1.30) of the drivers from Netgear.
Netgear FA312 - Seems to have the same problem as the FA311, but try this version (1.8) of the drivers instead. (Note that this driver should work with both the FA311 and FA312, so also try it if you have the FA311 and the above driver doesn't work.)
Alcatel Speed Touch USB DSL modem - Install these drivers.
If your network interface card (NIC) or DSL/cable modem were not listed above, then check with the manufacturer's website and make sure you have the latest drivers.
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by Archivis edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-22 18:04:36 | | | Below are the steps to create and distribute the .torrent file, and begin the seeding.
1.Decide what you want to share. A torrent can contain either a single file, or a directory of many files. This is often quite convenient, since it avoids the step of creating an archive (.zip, .rar, etc.) if you need to store multiple files. For example, if you are sharing a 2-CD movie, put both of the files in a directory and create a torrent for that, rather than zipping the files and then creating a torrent for the single archive file.
IMPORTANT NOTE! Despite what I would call common sense and courtesy, I see people doing stupid things at this point all the time! For example, if the file you are sharing was originally posted to Usenet and came in a number of parts (.RAR, .R00, .R01), do not put those parts in an archive and then create a torrent of that. Most media files are already compressed, and rar-ing or zip-ing them just adds an additional step for everyone that receives the files. And for the love of $DEITY, do not include the parity files in your torrent! In summary, if the end product you are sharing is an .AVI file, create a torrent for that. This makes it easier for people to hold on to the original form of the torrent, and this tends to lead to it being shared longer. If you distribute your AVI file as an RAR containing 33 parts, which itself contains a ZIP, then people will trudge through the processing of the files to get the AVI, and then most likely delete the original since it's in a form that is useless to them. Therefore, they cannot (re-)seed the torrent since they've lost the original format. Finally, you do your part to put an end to the neverending stream of "How do I open .R00 files?" questions. (end opinionated rant)
2.Run maketorrent. »www.dessent.net/btfaq/#utils (If you are sharing a single file, click the (file) button, otherwise click the (dir) button. In either case a file dialog will appear, and you should select the file/directory that you wish to share.
3.Enter the tracker's announce url in the space provided, or use the drop-down list to select from one of a common list of trackers. Remember, if you use a site's tracker when creating a .torrent file, plan to upload/post the file to that community. You can also add a comment, but it's optional.
4.Select the piece size, or just accept the default value of (auto). In general, the smaller the piece size, the more efficient the BitTorrent download will be, but will result in a larger .torrent file. 256 kB seems to be the most common piece size in use these days, but you can experiment with other settings if you want. Avoid very large piece sizes for small files; likewise avoid small piece sizes for very large files.
5.Click create torrent to begin the process of creating the file. You can then select if you want to create a single .torrent for all the files in the directory, or a number of separate .torrents. Most of the time you want a single .torrent for the whole folder, unless you know what you're doing. When finished, you should find a newly created .torrent file in the same directory as the file/directory you selected to share.
6.Upload this .torrent file to a web server. Usually this means going to the web page of the site whose tracker you used and clicking the "Upload torrent" link. The procedure varies from site to site, but it's usually always explained in a FAQ link or forum posting. If you are running your own web server (and have configured it appropriately) then upload the file to your server's public web space, or whatever method you use to put files on your server.
7.Finally, you must seed the file. Until this step, nothing but metadata has been transferred. Seeding is necessary to actually transmit your file to others. There are several ways to do this, but the simplest is to use your ordinary BitTorrent client just as you would with any other file. Navigate to the page on the web server where your .torrent is posted, click the link, and when the BitTorrent client starts be sure to select the same file/ directory that you used in maketorrent in step 2 above. The client should check the files and verify that they are complete, and then connect to the tracker and begin seeding.
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by Bolt Backer edited by removed
last modified: 2004-10-22 16:59:40 | | | Close all your running torrents and clients and try opening just the torrent giving you the error message. If the error message appears again, close it and check your task manager (Ctrl+alt+delete in Windows 2000/XP), "Processes" tab, and end any processes of 'btdownloadgui.exe', then try opening the torrent again, pointing the download directory to where you set it before so that it resumes.
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by nfx edited by removed
last modified: 2004-09-06 14:42:23 | | | Besides the plain-Jane official BT client, there are other clients out there which offer far more options that allow you to govern how your client operates. Such options include setting how fast your client will upload, how many upload slots to open, which ports to use, how many seeders and leachers there are, etc, the list goes on.
The following are some of the most popular alternative BT clients:
•BitTornado: »bittornado.com/
•Azureus: »azureus.sourceforge.net/ (Java is required)
•ABC: »pingpong-abc.sourceforge.net/
•Burst!: »krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/
•BitSpirit: »www.lanspirit.com/bs.htm
•BitComet: »www.bitcomet.com/
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by nfx edited by removed
last modified: 2005-02-28 03:24:27 | | | [BT] Router problems try this
I did not write this. It comes from the latest issue of CPU magazine and was written by Steve Smith. I thought it would help someone.
Tips & Tricks
November 2005 • Vol.5 Issue 11
Page(s) 93-94 in print issue
Add To My Personal Library
Software Tips & Projects
Tweak Your Torrents
The BT (BitTorrent) approach to distributing and downloading files can be demanding on your network and PC performance if the client is not properly configured. So, this month we’ll show you how to streamline your BT client experience. (Although we used Azureus [www.azureus.com] to illustrate many of these tips, you can still use these techniques in other clients.)
Clear The Router
Many new users of BT clients discover that their router drops its Internet connections frequently and requires rebooting. This occurs because the client is using more simultaneous connections to the Internet than some routers can handle.
BT (BitTorrent) clients can overwhelm your router and cause it to lose its Internet connection, so decrease the number of allowable connections.
BitTorrent doesn’t have an easy way to limit connections from within its interface, so dropped-connection sufferers may want to switch to Azureus. In Azureus open the Tools menu, click Options, and highlight the Transfer item. Go to the last box labeled Maximum Number Of Connections Globally. Many routers choke when the client tries to open 300 or more connections at a time, so try putting different figures in this box starting with 200. Experiment to see if your router tolerates increased connections. The problem usually occurs when several torrents are downloading at once, so test the setting by filling your Azureus queue with popular torrents. For the Maximum Number Of Connections Per Torrent box, try dividing the global maximum by the number of torrents you typically have running at once. If you had three files downloading at once, then try putting 300 as your maximum global setting and 100 as your per torrent setting.
You can also make performance tweaks in the Transfer window. In order to maintain control over the performance hit any BT client makes on your network and PC, put limits on upload and download bandwidth. For instance, in the top two boxes in this Transfer section, decide how much bandwidth you want to allot to torrent exchanges and experiment with how these numbers affect your other online browsing and downloading.
Unclog Torrent Blockages
When you use a BT client such as BitTorrent or Azureus, you may be puzzled by the slow download rate (even with popular torrents). If your PC is sitting behind a router, a firewall, or both, then it’s likely that they’re blocking ports that let other BT clients download pieces of torrents from you. Any limit you place on sharing torrents with other clients also caps the bandwidth you can use to download. So you need to make a larger range of ports to your network available to others.
Routers can choke your BT client’s ability to share torrents unless you use port forwarding.
With a router, first determine your IP address in the local network. Click Start, Run, and type CMD in the Open field. At the prompt type ipconfig and write down the number you see on the IP Address line. Type exit at the prompt to close the window.
Log onto your router (consult your router’s documentation for instructions) so that you can use port forwarding to open a larger range of network ports to your PC. Our Microsoft Broadband router has its port forwarding controls in the Security section labeled as Persistent Port Forwarding, so we’ll use this as an example. In the first box, we entered Azureus as a description to remind us why we’re opening these ports. In the In-bound ports section, we entered the range 6881-6889, set the type of access to TCP, and entered our IP address in the Private IP Address section. In the Private Ports section, we entered 6881-6889. Finally we clicked Add and logged out of the router.
Get Through The Wall
Even if you have port forwarding set up properly on your router, the software firewalls on your PC still may block incoming port calls. If you’re running Windows XP SP2 with the newer Windows Security Center, Windows Firewall may be on by default. To let your BT client work with the ports that the router is forwarding to it, click Start, Settings, Control Panel, and Windows Firewall. Click the Exceptions tab and Add Program. From the list click the client you’re using and click OK. This may speed up some BT clients.
However, if things are still sluggish, you need to tell the firewall to open specific ports. In the Windows Firewall Exceptions tab, highlight the BT client and click Add Port. In the next window, type the name of the BT client in the Name field, and in the Port Number box, type 6881. Click the TCP radio button and click OK. Unfortunately, the Windows Firewall won’t open up a range of ports in one window, so you need to repeat this procedure for every port number between 6881 and 6889. If you’re using Azureus, then you may also try entering these same eight ports with the Add Port function again, but click the UDP radio button. Every third-party firewall program is different, but some such as ZoneAlarm and Norton will let you enter your BT client as an “exception” or a “trusted program” that communicates freely with the Internet without opening specific ports.
IP blockers such as PeerGuardian 2 are imperfect but try to block IP addresses belonging to media industry snoopers.
Avoid Prying Eyes
As all file sharers know by now, the movie and recording industries actively monitor P2P networks. With the BT protocol, it’s easy for them to tap into a torrent and see the IP addresses of the other peers sharing the download. According to Olivier Chalouhi, lead designer of Azureus, the one way to run this program anonymously is to use the beta version of the I2P (www.i2p.net) anonymizer network. Unfortunately, this requires a convoluted installation of several programs and command line parameters, and even then the result is a system that only works with others using I2P. Likewise, the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is beta testing an anonymous network called Tor (tor.eff.org), but this system isn’t yet prepared to handle the traffic of P2P downloading.
Although its effectiveness is questionable, you could install a freeware IP blocker called PeerGuardian 2 (methlabs.org/projects) that blocks incoming traffic from IPs that are known or suspected to be part of the surveillance networks. You can use this if you’re running the original BitTorrent client. In Azureus there’s a plug-in available called SafePeer that uses a similar block list as PeerGuardian, but it only loads when Azureus does. Use the Plugins menu to open Installation Wizard and follow the prompts until you get a list of plug-ins. Check the SafePeer box and continue through the menus to install it. When you restart Azureus, SafePeer will download the current IP block list (adding about 30 seconds to the load time).
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by jsouth edited by removed
last modified: 2005-10-17 12:13:27 |
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