NAME¶

bittorrent-downloader — download files using a scatter-gather network

SYNOPSIS¶

btdownloadheadless [options ...] URL

btdownloadheadless [options ...] filename

btdownloadcurses [options ...] URL

btdownloadcurses [options ...] filename

btdownloadgui [options ...] URL

btdownloadgui [options ...] filename

btlaunchmany [options ...] directory

btlaunchmanycurses [options ...] directory

DESCRIPTION¶

This manual page documents briefly the options available to the bittorrent-downloader commands.

This manual page was written for the Debian distribution because the original program does not have a manual page.

btdownloadheadless, btdownloadcurses, btdownloadgui, btlaunchmany, and btlaunchmanycurses are all programs that allow a user to download files using bittorrent, a peer to peer, scatter-gather network protocol. They all share a common set of options, shown below. For more information on how to run them, and their program-specific options, see their individual man pages.

OPTIONS¶

These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`--'). A summary of options is included below.

--max_uploads number

the maximum number of uploads to allow at once (defaults to 7)

--keepalive_interval seconds

the number of seconds to pause between sending keepalives (defaults to 120.0)

--download_slice_size bytes

the number of bytes to query for per request (defaults to 16384)

--upload_unit_size bytes

when limiting the upload rate, the number of bytes to send at a time (defaults to 1460)

--request_backlog number

the maximum number of requests to keep in a single pipe at once (defaults to 10)

--max_message_length length

the maximum length prefix encoding you'll accept over the wire. Larger values will get the connection dropped. (defaults to 8388608)

--ip ip

the ip to report you have to the tracker (defaults to '')

--minport port

the minimum port to listen on (defaults to 10000)

--maxport port

the maximum port to listen on (defaults to 60000)

--random_port 0|1

whether to choose randomly inside the port range (instead of counting up linearly from min to max) (defaults to 1)

--responsefile file

the file the server response was stored in, as an alternative to --url. If this option is used, no filename or URL should be present on the command line. (defaults to '')

--url URL

the URL to get the torrent file from, as an alternative to --responsefile. If this option is used, no filename or URL should be present on the command line. (defaults to '')

--crypto_allowed 0|1

whether to allow the client to accept encrypted connections. (defaults to 1 if python-crypto is installed, 0 otherwise)

--crypto_only 0|1

whether to only create or allow encrypted connections. (defaults to 0)

--crypto_stealth 0|1

whether to prevent all non-encrypted connection attempts; will result in an effectively firewalled state on older trackers. (defaults to 0)

--selector_enabled 0|1

whether to enable the file selector and fast resume function (defaults to 1)

--expire_cache_data days

the number of days after which you wish to expire old cache data (0 = disabled) (defaults to 10)

--priority -1|0|1|2[,-1|0|1|2 ...]

a list of file priorities, separated by commas. There must be one per file. 0 = highest, 1 = normal, 2 = lowest, -1 = download disabled. Order is based on the file/torrent order as shown by btshowmetainfo. For example, to download only the third of four files use: --priority -1,-1,2,-1 (defaults to '')

--saveas filename

the local filename to save the file as, null indicates query user (defaults to '')

--timeout seconds

the number of seconds to wait between closing sockets which nothing has been received on (defaults to 300.0)

--timeout_check_interval seconds

the number of seconds to wait between checking if any connections have timed out (defaults to 60.0)

--max_slice_length length

the maximum length slice to send to peers, larger requests are ignored (defaults to 131072)

--max_rate_period seconds

the maximum number of seconds to use in guessing what the current rate estimate represents (defaults to 20.0)

--bind ip|hostname[,ip|hostname ...]

a comma-separated list of ips and hostnames to bind to locally (defaults to '')

--ipv6_enabled 0|1

whether to allow the client to connect to peers via IPv6 (defaults to 0)

--ipv6_binds_v4 0|1

set if an IPv6 server socket won't also field IPv4 connections (defaults to 0)

--upload_rate_fudge seconds

the time equivalent in seconds of writing to kernel-level TCP buffer, for rate adjustment (defaults to 5.0)

--tcp_ack_fudge overhead

how much TCP ACK download overhead to add to upload rate calculations (0 = disabled) (defaults to 0.029999999999999999)

--display_interval seconds

the number of seconds between updates of displayed information (defaults to 0.5)

--rerequest_interval seconds

the number of seconds between requesting more peers (defaults to 300)

--min_peers number

make tracker requests every --rerequest_interval until this number has been reached, then switch to the standard longer interval (defaults to 20)

--http_timeout seconds

the number of seconds to wait before assuming that an http connection has timed out (defaults to 60)

--max_initiate number

the number of peers at which to stop initiating new connections (defaults to 40)

--check_hashes 0|1

whether to check hashes on disk (defaults to 1)

--max_upload_rate kB/s

the maximum kB/s to upload at (0 = no limit, -1 = automatic) (defaults to 0)

--max_download_rate kB/s

the maximum kB/s to download at (0 = no limit) (defaults to 0)

--alloc_type normal|background|pre-allocate|sparse

the allocation type (may be 'normal', 'background', 'pre-allocate' or 'sparse') (defaults to 'normal')

--alloc_rate MiB/s

the rate (in MiB/s) to allocate space at using background allocation (defaults to 2.0)

--buffer_reads 0|1

whether to buffer disk reads (defaults to 1)

--write_buffer_size space

the maximum amount of space to use for buffering disk writes (in megabytes, 0 = disabled) (defaults to 4)

--breakup_seed_bitfield 0|1

whether to send an incomplete bitfield and then 'have' messages, in order to get around stupid ISP manipulation (defaults to 1)

--snub_time seconds

the number of seconds to wait for data to come in over a connection before assuming it's semi-permanently choked (defaults to 30.0)

--spew 0|1

whether to display diagnostic info to stdout. This option is not very useful when using the curses or gui interfaces. (defaults to 0)

--rarest_first_cutoff number

the number of downloads at which to switch from random to rarest first (defaults to 2)

--rarest_first_priority_cutoff number

the number of peers which need to have a piece before other partials take priority over rarest first (defaults to 5)

--min_uploads number

the number of uploads to fill out to with extra optimistic unchokes (defaults to 4)

--max_files_open number

the maximum number of files to keep open at a time, 0 means no limit (defaults to 50)

--round_robin_period seconds

the number of seconds between the client switching upload targets (defaults to 30)

--super_seeder 0|1

whether to use special upload-efficiency-maximizing routines (only for dedicated seeds) (defaults to 0)

--security 0|1

whether to enable extra security features intended to prevent abuse (defaults to 1)

--max_connections number

the absolute maximum number of peers to connect with (0 = no limit) (defaults to 0)

--auto_kick 0|1

whether to allow the client to automatically kick/ban peers that send bad data (defaults to 1)

--double_check 0|1

whether to double-check data being written to the disk for errors (may increase CPU load) (defaults to 1)

--triple_check 0|1

whether to thoroughly check data being written to the disk (may slow disk access) (defaults to 0)

--lock_files 0|1

whether to lock files the client is working with (defaults to 1)

--lock_while_reading 0|1

whether to lock access to files being read (defaults to 0)

--auto_flush minutes

the number of minutes between automatic flushes to disk (0 = disabled) (defaults to 0)

--dedicated_seed_id code

the code to send to a tracker, identifying as a dedicated seed (defaults to '')

--save_options 0|1

whether to save the current options as the new default configuration for the current program (defaults to 0)

SEE ALSO¶

The single torrent downloaders: btdownloadheadless(1), btdownloadcurses(1), btdownloadgui(1).

The multiple torrent downloaders: bittorrent-multi-downloader(1), btlaunchmany(1), btlaunchmanycurses(1).

The bittorrent tracker: bttrack(1).

The torrent file creators: btmakemetafile(1), btmaketorrentgui(1), btcompletedir(1), btcompletedirgui(1).

The torrent file modifiers: btcopyannounce(1), btreannounce(1), btrename(1), btsethttpseeds(1).

The torrent file displayer: btshowmetainfo(1).

AUTHOR¶

This manual page was written by Cameron Dale <camrdale@gmail.com> (based on the original man pages written by Micah Anderson <micah@debian.org>) for the Debian system (but may be used by others). Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.