rTorrent
rTorrent is a console-based BitTorrent client, based on the libTorrent libraries for Unix.
Initial Setup
First you must connect to your slot via ssh. If you need help connecting to the server, please read the help article here.
Installing rTorrent is easy. Simply issue the following command:
sudo box install rtorrent
This command will compile and configure rTorrent for use on your slot.
Before installation, a prompt will display asking which version of rTorrent you'd like to install. Repo is unstable and should only be used a last resort. 0.9.8, 0.9.7, 0.9.6 include performance and stability patches. UDNS includes release improvements and has additional stability changes for UDP trackers.
After installation, there will be many new packages installed: c-ares, curl, mktorrent, udns, xmlrpc-c, libtorrent-rakshasa, and rtorrent. Please disregard warnings received about the held rtorrent apt package. The custom version of curl is required for c-ares support. rtorrent works better with the DNS improvements.
Instructions for software developers to apply patches are in the developer documentation
How to upgrade/downgrade
rTorrent has a upgrade helper script in box. To access the function, use the command:
sudo box upgrade rtorrent
A prompt will display asking which version you'd like to install. Select one to rebuild rTorrent against your latest libraries.
How to Access
Once rTorrent has been installed, you can either choose to access and command rTorrent from either the web-gui (ruTorrent) or the curses gui. The curses gui is considered "advanced" and not many users will opt for this option.
ruTorrent
In order to access the ruTorrent GUI, you'll first need to install it with box. Once you have installed it, the web-gui of rTorrent can be found at https://<hostname.ltd>/rutorrent.
Command Line
rTorrent runs as a daemon on a Linux Screen. To connect to the curses GUI, you need to attach to the running screen named rtorrent. Simply issue the following command:
screen -r rtorrent
When done with the session, do not quit rTorrent. Rather, you should detach from the screen, so that rTorrent remains running in the background. To do this, press the keys: ctrl-a, ctrl-d
You will be returned to the command line and you screen will remain running in the background. For help on using the curses UI, check the rTorrent user guide.
Service Management
The systemd script for rTorrent can be found at
/etc/systemd/system/rtorrent@.service
As a multi-user script, you must call it with the username to change the service status.
To restart rtorrent, type the following command and replace <username> with your swizzin user:
systemctl restart rtorrent@<username>
Configuration
The rTorrent configuration file is located in /home/user/.rtorrent.rc. You should be careful when editing this file. The rtorrent client may stop working properly. Things like ip, bind, network.scgi.open_local etc. should not be changed.
Default Download Location
Files downloaded by rTorrent will be placed in ~/torrents/rtorrent by default. You can change this behavior by changing the line: directory.default.set in the file ~/.rtorrent.rc. Ensure you restart rtorrent after making any changes to the file .rtorrent.rc in order to reload any changes.
Web Download Location
Similarly, any files in the default download directory (~/torrents/rtorrent) will be available for browsing via the web server at the location: https://<yourhostname.ltd>/rtorrent.downloads
Extensions
You can install additional themes and plugins using the rtx helper script
Connect to other clients
Generally speaking, most of the other clients connect to rTorrent, not the other way around. There are typically two ways to connect a client to rTorrent: RPC mounts and Unix Sockets.
Unix Sockets
Rather than exposing a local, insecure TCP port the rTorrent client creates a socket that can only be listened to by your own user.
/run/<username>/.rtorrent.sock
If you are adding this to a program, you need to pre-pend the unix:// protocol designation:
unix:///run/liara/.rtorrent.sock
RPC Mounts
An RPC mount is an interface created by the webserver (nginx) to speak directly to the unix socket on the system. There are currently two ways to connect to the RPC socket: through ruTorrent or through an RPC layer created for your user by the webserver. In all cases, the mount is protected by basic nginx authentication measures to protect the mount from unauthorized access. To connect to the RPC mount from a local client use the following details:
Host: 127.0.0.1
Port: 443
SSL: ON
Username: <your username>
Password: <your password>
RPC Mount: /<username> OR /rutorrent/plugins/httprpc/action.php
Both of the RPC mounts behave exactly the same, though if you're on a mobile connection (i.e. for Transdrone), it may be preferable to use the ruTorrent plugin version of the mount as it will probably be a bit more friendly to your data usage. The nginx mount point was simply created to provide an easy to remember way to provide access to your rTorrent slot.
Transdroid/Transdrone
Should you wish to connect your rTorrent instance to the mobile application Transdrone, use the following settings:
Name: rtorrent (or whatever you like)
Server type: rtorrent
IP or host name: <the hostname of your server>
Username: <your username>
Password: <your password>
Advanced Settings:
SCGI mount point: /rutorrent/plugins/httprpc/action.php OR /<username>
Use SSL: ON
You may prefer to access the SCGI mount from the ruTorrent plugin over a mobile connection as the httprpc plugin has been configured to utilize compression and therefore, less data.
Troubleshooting
You can always also try the general troubleshooting tips written in our guide. They might or might not apply, but asking these questions can often make you understand what is under the hood better and help you find what needs to be fixed. It's always worth a shot!
Please remember: rtorrent and rutorrent are two very different things.
Rtorrent is the process doing the "work", and rutorrent is a WEB frontend which runs in the PHP environment, which talks to rtorrent. These two need to be troubleshot very differently, and if one is down it does not mean the other os malfunctioning.
XYZ Plugin will not work
If you get a message like XYZ: Plugin will not work. rTorrent user can't access external program (<ABC>), you should be able to run the following
box install <ABC>
If it is not available, please google the message above and see what you need to install.
logs
There aren't really any logs made by default. The systemd service is only reporting what the screen tells it, which is very much nothing seeing as rtorrent runs in ncurses-like UI.
You need to enable loggin in your rtorrent.rc file manually. You can read more about that here.
rtorrent doesn't start up
You might get a good look at what is causing the service to fail by simply running rtorrent while logged in as the user you're troubleshooting for. You can also check systemctl status rtorrent@<user>
Half the time time, the issue stems from either an invalid configuration in the .rtorrent.rc file, or file/directory permissions of the resources rtorrent is attempting to access.
The other half of the times, it might be the case that your rtorrent has not stopped properly and has left behind the rtorrent.lock file. If this file is present, it will prevent any rtorrent process from starting.
To troubleshoot the above issues, you can try our child-tested and mother approved rtorrent troubleshooting dance.
Please note that while this won't necessarily fix your setup straight away, it will help you expose the culprit of the issue. If you find something that is out of line, you'll have a lead.
# !!! This dance assumes you are logged into the console as the user who is having the issues.
# If necessary, use the su or sudo su commands to switch he user.
# Stop rtorrent if it is currently running in some odd state.
sudo systemctl stop rtorrent@$USER
#Check there are no screen sessions running for rtorrent
screen -ls
# Verify there is no other random rtorrent process running
ps x | grep rtorrent
# Check if the lock file exists
find ~ -name "*rtorrent.lock"
# Remove the file that prevents the startup
rm ~/.sessions/rtorrent.lock # Or whatever the path was that returned above
#Verify that rtorrent can start successfully
rtorrent
# Quit the rtorrent
# <Press CTRL+q>
# Start the rtorrent service
sudo systemctl start rtorrent@$USER
# check the output
systemctl status rtorrent@$USER
# See if you can attach the screen with rtorrent
screen -r rtorrent
# !!! DETACH from the screen
# <Press CTRL+a (release) d>
Below are some steps to resolve common issues that arise in the above
error while loading shared libraries: libtorrent.so.19 or some other number at the end
This usually means you are missing the right version of libtorrent for the version of rtorrent you are trying to run.
Please check apt policy libtorrent19 (or libtorrent21 or whatever other number you got above) to confirm whether you have the right library installed.
If not, run box upgrade rtorrent and choose whichever version you desire. This should fix your issues. If you still have problems, please check the swizzin logs (see big troubleshooting guide).
The Web UI is broken
You might want to look into troubleshooting your NGINX+PHP setup in this case.
Please consult the Troubleshooting guide further.
My disk is full?
Are you seeing this error?
Please fix your quota installation.
The cloudlfare plugin does not work
It's fine. That issue is basically cosmetic only, and you can just disable the plugin. That is done in the plugin tab in the bottom-half of the screen. Right-click on the cloudflare plugin, and disable it.
Developer
Patching
If you would like to patch the rTorrent or libtorrent-rakshasa source, the rTorrent compile will check if /root/libtorrent-rakshasa-{libtorrentver}.patch and /root/rtorrent-{rtorrentver}.patch exist. If they do, then the installer will automatically patch the rTorrent and/or libtorrent-rakshasa source with these patches before they are compiled.
Note that libtorrent-rakshasa (used by rTorrent) is a different library than libtorrent-rasterbar (used by Deluge and qBittorrent). For details on how to patch libtorrent-rasterbar, refer to the Deluge and qBittorrent pages.
Examples of valid patch filenames are:
/root/libtorrent-rakshasa-0.13.8.patch
/root/rtorrent-0.9.8.patch
You must supply your own patches!