How to get rtorrent to use magnet links

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redandwhitestripes
Posts: 179
Joined: Fri 02 Jan 2009, 06:49

How to get rtorrent to use magnet links

#1 Post by redandwhitestripes »

I like rtorrent because unlike other torrent clients, it does not slow down my system or my internet connection.

So with magnet links becoming the standard for bitorrent use, I wanted rtorrent to use them with ease. There is actually a workaround by using free websites that convert magnet links to torrent files websites but I liked the challenge of avoiding them!

So first of all I ensured I had rtorrent 0.8.9 and the appropriate libtorrent pets installed.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 403b484b72

Thanks to the user who posted those pets.


Earlier versions cannot support magnet links. With 0.8.9 users can press backspace and simply copy the link to the magnet file. This will place the "*.meta" file in rtorrent, but will not begin the download. Further steps are required.


I then created an .rtorrent.rc file with session directory and DHT enabled. Sample rc file:
http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/export/11 ... torrent.rc


However I was getting error messages. A little research told me rorrent works with magnet links via a standard called DHT, and that DHT needed bootstrapping to work. Bootstrapping could work in a few ways, such as downloading a torrent file with DHT mapping, like these:
http://opensource.depthstrike.com

I also tried a couple of other things, such as using a bash script and downloading well known open source torrent files like ubuntu.
http://wiki.rtorrent.org/MagnetUri



For a long time nothing seemed to happen, the .meta files just sat in rtorrent without activity. Then after a few hours I tried to c+p the link to another magnet file and hey presto! It started!

I have since copied all this with another system with eventual success. I have no idea which of the above tactics actually made the difference however, so i welcome input from my more knowledgeable Puppy peers :-)

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