| Bittorrent
for absolute beginners Also available in Swedish and Dutch.
Bittorrent - basics ^ Get yourself a client. Be prepared to try out several clients - partly because different sites prefers different clients above others, and partly to simply find the client that suits you best. Here a detailed and informational list of clients. The list contains windows clients, but also Macintosh, Linux/Unix and Java clients. The client handles the torrent file you download from a tracker, listing site or forum – there are a number of sites online where you can find torrent files. You can even find them using google, or read around in forums, like the one where you found this guide. The torrent file is not the file you aim to download, but a tool in order to begin downloading it - it keeps you in touch with a tracker och sorts out which users are sitting on which piece. See - bittorrent sends small bits randomly between users, who in turn sends small bits to other users. Have you ever seen a champagne pyramid? Principally the same - one glass gets filled, and that glass in turn fills up the next glass, which in turn fills the next, and so on. Trickling down, filling all glasses. Bittorrent isn't linear though, that that example might imply - it randomly sends and receives pieces from random users connected via the same torrent file. ____________________________ Terminology: ^ Leecher – that's the guys that don't have the complete file. Observe that the leecher still is a part of the process and uploads at the same time he/she's downloading. It might do you good to know that the more you participate in the uploading process, the faster you will get the whole file. Try not to quench the upload speeds too much, it will pay off for you. Seeder – those that now have the entire file, 100%, and therefore only function to upload to those that haven't got the whole thing yet. Peers – all users connected to the same torrent. The more peers, the greater the speeds, providing there are enough seeders. If there are thousands of peers and only one seed, you will have to exercise some patience. Tracker – the centre when you start up the torrent. In short - it connects you to other users and is also the thing that sends you messages to your client. It informs you of the health of the tracker at the moment or if, for example, the tracker needs for you to use another client. The latter is clearly put, most errors though are notes of the tracker being bogged down, so just leave the torrent open and again, show some patience. A more complete and technical list here for common terms and expressions in the bittorrent culture.. ____________________________ How to download ^ So - you've downloaded and installed a client or two. And you know you need a torrent file to be able to download a release. Next step. Practically - you find a torrent file online, you download it to your computer - usually by right-clicking the link and "save as", but some sites also have that automatically on left-click. Recommended to keep the actual .torrent-file on your harddisk, in case you need to restart it. Client – open – browse to .torrent file – open. Dead simple. Open .torrent file and run, basically. It starts download the minute the tracker has picked up on you being amongst the peers. Most tracker needs AT LEAST a few minutes to pick up, so leave it alone for a while. Return to the client, 15-30 minutes later to check on it. Observe that the .torrent keep in touch with the various bits of the file you're downloading, and it's not done until the client displays you have 100% of the file. Before downloading, check the client's preferences and set a designated folder. This so that both you and the client know where the file is when done. Some clients also allows for individual settings for each .torrent you open, so give yourself a few minutes to go through that. Before torrenting seriously though, please read through Speeds and settings below. When choosing a torrent-file to download - check the contents of it. Always avoid downloading torrents that contains .exe files unless sure it's not a self-extracting file that will wreak havoc on your system. You can check in your client, if the listing you get the torrent from doesn't inform of the contents. It's usually somewhere in your client, displayed even before starting it up. So note: Do Not Download .EXE files. ____________________________ Speeds and settings ^ You should go over your settings in the client, called preferences at times, to see to that you have the best possibilities for good speeds and connectivity. Two basics: Ports and Bandwidth. Ports: ^ In short: Open the same ports in your client as in your firewall/router. Really important. In your client's preferences you always find a port setting. You can, if you wish, use the default setting, but many complain about those ports being too widely used and reducing effectiveness lately, so change them into something else. Any numbers will do. Add for as many ports you figure you need. For instance: 11111 first port, then 11112, 11113 etc. (Mostly typed in like 11111-11119) Ten ports or so should be enough - certain clients only allows for one port though - no worries it will work anyways. The trick is that the SAME PORTS are open in your firewall/router as in your client. Portforward.com has the best help on how to achieve that, if you don't know how to manipulate your firewall/router yourself. Take your time and master this - it will pay off big time. Bandwidth: ^ Users often have problems with speeds, and if it's not because they don't have corresponding ports in client and firewall, it's because they are choking the bandwidth by too liberal settings. Best is to find the prefences in your client, and limit speeds up and down (varies between clients) to about 80-90 percent of your total bandwidth. Too much, it chokes on itself, too little and you'll get mad. Fiddle around with the settings and see what your system can handle. Most clients has a site and a FAQ where you can read around about the settings. Test it, experiment, it will become easier as you get to know the client. If nothing else works, change client, and see if the interface of the new one perhaps feels easier to handle for you. If you absolutely can't control the speeds, you can use a proggie like Bandwidth Limiter or Netlimiter, where you can set how much bandwidth each program is allowed to take. However - they require some work, and can create problems, so try to use the client instead. ____________________________ Why is it still slow, even though having done all above? ^ The downside of Bittorrent is limited life-expectancy on the torrent files. If you have started to download a file that was released some time ago, chances are that there are very few peers hooked up to it, or it might even lack a seeder. You can check the client if indeed there are more than 100% of the file distributed between the leechers, which would give you a chance at least to finish it, but usually the speeds are quite slow in cases like these. Sometimes you simply have to give up on it. The point is - it's not going faster than what the peers connected to the same file allows/are capable to give. Patience, and then some more patience. Other reasons might be your NIC, NAT or similar, and if you've controlled all the settings mentioned above, you can read around at Dessent's bittorrent FAQ. ____________________________ Bits and bobs ^ Most errors that shows up is notes about the health of the tracker. Usually that it's bogged down. Leave the torrent as is in the client, and return a bit later to see if things have improved. Some errors are quite clear: Change client, Register on Tracker. In which case you simply do as the message you get tells you, in order to get the file. Some releasers uses something called "superseeding" when releasing. This function serves to "force" users to participate in uploading the pieces they recieve. Read this for a detailed description. This setting sometimes makes your client to believe that a torrent is without a seeder, because of the nature of the function. That is not the case - a relatively new torrent, with lots of peers - even though showing zero seeders it's probably because it's superseeded, so please just be patient. Bittorrent is built on everybody helping eachother out. It is considered good manners to at least upload as much as you download. Yeah - some have less possibilities to seed, but then try out to help out in other ways. Entering the bittorrent community with some sort of notion to just download - only creates bad will, so please do not demand anything, and give back as much as you can and be helpful. Torrent sites: Sites with torrents, listing sites, without tracker function - also known as dump sites: Torrentspy, Mininova, snarf-it, Livetorrents, Torrentmatrix, Torrentportal, Fulldls, Desinova, Rokanova, Inside-Source. Just to mention a few. Most have pretty much the same listing, and some close down and usually a new site opens up. By habit these sites are called "trackers" but from a releaser's stand point, it's not a tracker you can release with from get-go. You need a proper tracker for that, and then you can release your torrent at such a site. Sites that are strict search engines: Hypertorrent, Isohunt, Bitoogle, Torrent search, Bittorrent.com. Search sites are great to find specific torrents you're looking for - however the torrents you find can often be outdated, as those places gotta preserve bandwidth by not updating too often. Sites with tracker functions - that is having a tracker you can use in order to release: Pirate Bay (recommended), Sladinki's, Demonoid. Check below for how to create torrents and release. There also are a number of forums/communities that is good for finding torrents, or asking for help in general. Torrentmind (you can read around, but have to register to find torrents and post) for instance. There are a number of great communities - most sites sport a forum section. A hint - if you decide to register and participate - read around as much as you can first. Check where things go, and if the information you are looking for is already available. Useful links: VLC - Videolan. Great player for n00bs who are not too aquainted with codecs and bin-cue formats. Not the best quality player, but quite useful in order to play just about any format of file on any kind of plattform. Codec information. What is codecs? How to go about it, what it means and so on. New users on .avi formats will find this very useful. BurnWorld. In order to find all sorts of information on how to burn releases to discs. Glossary. For commonly used expressions. Very useful for finding out what the various acronyms means, not in the least in torrent-names. Torrentspy. Superb little aplet for finding out the health of a torrent. Simply drag the file into it, and it will tell you if it have any peers and/or which tracker it's using. It might sometimes tell you that the torrent is unusable, but double check the site if it's a temporary problem, might just be that the tracker is busy atm. ************************************************************
Sharing is caring – upload at least as much as you download! ^ ************************************************************
____________________________ How to create and release a torrent ^ Download Maketorrent. Most clients have a built-in torrent creator, if you decide to use that though, you'll have to experiment on your own. I prefer Maketorrent, and this guide is based on how to use it. • Things to do first: Create a folder with the file(s), that you intend to release. Make an information file, an ordinary .txt file is fine, with all conceivable information you can think of. Keygens, passwords, rip, size, quality, how to play/use/execute the file, and so on. There is no such thing as too much information in this case. Name the folder properly. For instance: "deliciouscookies_350meg_nosprinkels_withbutter". This because when you create the torrent it will be named as the folder. The better the description, the more peers. Downloaders in general avoid files with bad descriptions. Small files can be compressed or rar'ed - .exe files SHOULD even be packed properly. Bittorrent has no need, generally speaking, for compressed or rar'ed files, and is mostly regarded as unecessary and annoying by downloaders. It, for instance, means twice the harddisk space, if you want to use the file but continue to seed it. Not a major issue, but there really aren't any good reasons for packaging the files when releasing with bittorrent. The rar'ed files you sometimes find using bittorrent, are usually from another P2P plattform, in which case rar'ed files are very useful. • So now we create the torrent file: You need access to a tracker. Each tracker has an announce url that you have to assign the torrent, so that it knows where it belongs. You can usually find it on the upload link at the tracker site. You mostly need to be registered to the tracker in order to be able to use it. (The client Azareus has a built-in tracker feature - in which case the above is not required. Instructions. More for the experienced bittorrent user though.) Open Maketorrent - browse to the folder where your files are, like you do in any other program. (use the setting "classic" in case you have a folder within the release folder), highlight the file(s) in the window to the right - enter the announce url you've got from the tracker and press go. You HAVE to upload the now created .torrent file to the tracker of which you used the announce url. The .torrent file is to be found next to the release folder you used to create the torrent with. Make sure you open the torrent file in your client. It has to be showing as seeding - that is 100% of the file - in your client. (When opening the .torrent - lead it to the folder where your release is, unless you've set a folder in the client already.) • Do not be in a rush The tracker will need time to update the list, sometimes stated when you upload how long time it will take - have a cup of coffee or something. Do not upload the same torrent again but wait for it to turn up. Remember that you need to have the torrent file open in your client, and at 100%. Be patient - different trackers have different response times. In order to check if it's working ask a friend to download it when it turns up on the listing, or simply download it yourself using another client, and leading to another folder so the client doesn't feel it's already there of course, and start downloading. In order for it to be spread around as much as possible, upload the torrent to listing sites, after you know it's working. There are a number of of them around - some links above at Bits and bobs. By doing this you create a large swarm, many peers and you can leave it to live it's own life sooner that you could if there aren't all that many peers on it. Take care of your torrent - control it, check to see if people have any questions, you learn a lot by checking back for peoples' comments. Remember that a very few users actually say thank you, and some even feel that they can criticize rather harshly, but quite frankly - don't give a shit. What you're doing when releasing is what bittorrent is about - sharing and exchanging information, so stay proud. Good luck and happy torrenting! ^ By emma - admin Torrentmind |