Configuring BitTorrent services

Introduction

This page describes how Alexis Huxley installed and configured the Transmission BitTorrent software.

This procedure was last done using Transmission version 2.84, which is the one in Ubuntu 16.04.

Procedure

1. Install transmission:

   apt-get install transmission-daemon

2. To modify the configuration:
   1. Stop the daemon:

      systemctl stop transmission-daemon

   2. Edit /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json and adjust the following settings (these are my personal preferences):

      "blocklist-enabled": true,
      "blocklist-url": "http://john.bitsurge.net/public/biglist.p2p.gz",
      "incomplete-dir": "/var/lib/transmission-daemon/Downloads",
      "peer-limit-per-torrent": 100,
      "peer-port": 57322,
      "port-forwarding-enabled": true,
      "rpc-authentication-required": false,
      "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,192.168.*.*",
      "speed-limit-down": 2000,
      "speed-limit-down-enabled": true,
      "speed-limit-up": 150,
      "speed-limit-up-enabled": true,

   3. Open port 57322 for both TCP and UDP traffic.
   4. Make a backup copy of the configuration and restart the daemon:

      cp /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json.bak
      systemctl start transmission-daemon

3. Go the transmission web interface (port 9091 probably), go to Preferences, Peers, Blocklists and click Update Blocklist.
4. To migrate over content from an old transmission server to this new transmission server:
   1. Stop the service
   2. Optionally connect additional storage at /var/lib/transmission/downloads/
   3. Copy over the contents of directory /var/lib/transmission-daemon/downloads/
   4. Copy over the contents of directory /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/torrents/
   5. Copy over the contents of directory /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/resume/
   6. Run:

      chown debian-transmission:debian-transmission /var/lib/transmission-daemon/downloads/*
      chown debian-transmission:debian-transmission /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/torrents/*
      chown debian-transmission:debian-transmission /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/resume/*

   7. Restart the service.
   8. If torrents display location errors, then correct this by right-clicking on the item, selecting ‘Set Location’ and correcting the location.
5. To proxy access to the transmission web interface, add a stanza like this to the web server configuration:

   RedirectMatch ^/bt[/]?$ /transmission/web/
   <Location "/transmission">
       ProxyPass http://gigli.pasta.net:9091/transmission
       ProxyPassReverse http://gigli.pasta.net:9091/transmission
       AllowOverride None
       Require ip 192.168.0.0/16
   </Location>

See also

1. Computing
2. http://www.transmissionbt.com/