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Raspberry pi as network torrent downloader with Transmission

I wrote an article about transforming Raspberry Pi into a NAS to share files on a local network with an external usb storage: see technical details there, for brevity here just suppose you’ve a Raspberry PI on local network with a USB drive attached.

transforming Raspberry Pi into a NAS

Since Raspberry PI has limited resources, my choice go to Transmission daemon. It’s a very light version of Transmission running as a service (daemon) in background. There are different client available, but I use the Web interface:

Web client

Using web client, I can start and stop and download torrents within the local network and, if you expose raspberry in the DMZ and use a static IP or a dyndns, from everywhere you are.

Let’s install! On root console, type:

\# apt-get install transmission-daemon

Edit the configuration file according to your filesystem:

Edit the configuration file

\# nano /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json

Change “download-dir” and “incomplete-dir” into different directories on your external usb device, something like /media/MYDRIVE/mydownloaddir and /media/MYDRIVE/myincompletedir.

I also changed:

“rpc-url”: “/mysecretpath/”
“rpc-username”: “mysecretuser”
“rpc-password”: “mypassword” note: this will be hashed at the transmission restart
“rpc-whitelist”: “1,\*.\*,\*.\*.\*.\*” warning: copy the \*.\*.\*.\* only if you want to expose your Raspberry PI publicly on the Internet.

I leave unchanged:

“rpc-port”: 9091

Before restarting transmission, copy the configuration file somewhere as a backup copy, because sometimes Transmission overwrite it badly.

Restart transmission:

\# service transmission-daemon restart

Now you should reach web interface in this way:

=> http://RASPBERRY_PI_LOCAL_IP:rpc-port/rpc-url/ http://RASPBERRY_PI_LOCAL_IP:rpc-port/rpc-url/

e.g.

http://5:9091/mysecretpath/

=> http://5

or using the host name, for raspbian “raspberrypi”:

=> http://raspberrypi:9091/mysecretpath/

Typing username and password you can start to add torrent using the first icon on the left (Open torrent):

=> https://chirale.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/upload.jpg?w=300 upload

Uploading a file from your local filesystem or providing a torrent url from an external service.

Important note: please remember that Raspberry PI has limited resources. Do not start too many torrents at once because hash calculations are cpu intensive.

After you finished download, seed for a while and then clear the completed items (right click to show options) you’ve already downloaded to keep Transmission running smoothly.

Raspberry pi as network torrent downloader with Transmission

See also