Continuing the BT conversation (Click MORE). I know next to nothing about this, but I want to come back to it.

(From Josh Kinberg)
I'm not so worried about downloading torrents. I think that's easy
enough with the "official" BitTorrent client (Azureus is a little more
complex, but usable). And the iPodder-Dev folks have already come
through with automated BT downloading from RSS feeds.

But, its still not very easy to host or serve files on my own using
BitTorrent. I guess I could upload your files to a community site
like DV Guide, but its not quite the same as serving my own content.
So, in order to serve files using BT from my own website, I need a
tracker and something that generates .torrent files. Using the python
source files of BT seems to be a good way to generate the .torrent
files from a command line script (as Drazen has demonstrated). I could
even use the GUI version to make .torrents if I had a tracker to point them at.

So, in looking for torrent tracker templates, I found this PHP BT tracker:

http://dehacked.2y.net:6969/
(check the little download link beneath the table of stats)

Looks like what Drazen is using for DV Guide -- I discovered it
through the Bblog forums, the software powering DV Guide, and they
already have this implemented as a Bblog plugin. So, why not a
MovableType plugin! I would want something that I could install and
configure without too much difficulty that would give me my own
tracker and maybe some sort of "upload" page that geberates .torrent
files for me in the appropriate directory. This would be the perfect
complement to Brandon Fuller's MT-Enclosures plugin.

Now, here's one other simple minded question:
To serve files using BT, do I have to upload both the .torrent file
and the file I want to share to my server? Is it possible to keep the
file I want to share on my local drive and keep my BT client open to
"seed" that file? This is one of the nice things about other P2P
systems -- the fact that I don't really have to "upload" things. I
keep the files I want to share in a local directory, and the client
application makes those files available to other peers on the network
(am I correct about this?). If I had to upload large files regularly
to my webserver in order to share them, it would be frustratingly slow
and I would max out my server storage pretty quickly.

--Josh

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:00:29 -0400, Thomas Winningham
wrote:
> An automated download script would be way easy, especially if you are
> also in control of what is on the feed. Using XSLT, you can convert
> everything in the tag to just a list in a text file, one after
> another. "wget" and "curl" are command-line HTTP protocol programs
> that can download such a list. For XSL transformations, look for a
> program called "xsltproc" ... All three of these utilities are GNU/GPL
> programs that work on Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. Creating an XSLT
> stylesheet would be easy, let me know and I can write one for you.
> Some of these types of automatic-download-by-rss utilities already
> exist.
>
> An upload client can be a little trickier. BlogTorrent (formerly
> BattleTorrent) is already working on a Mac client. I have written some
> command-line programs (http://writtorrent.sf.net/) to post a .torrent
> to a blog using the metablogger and blogger APIs ... But what do you
> do with the actual torrent file? My scripts just do the actual blog
> post. You still need to FTP or something the .torrent file to your
> hosting. Metablogger API may have routines for recieving files, but I
> haven't explored that at all.
>
> So, what makes this easy? Here's a basic flow for each:
>
> get rss feed -> extract links to media -> download the media
> make .torrent -> post to your blog the .torrent file
>
> There's a lot of loose ends, ultimately I think, you have to close
> down the system in some fashion.... one media format, one type of RSS
> feed, I don't know.
>
> That's my 2 cents ;p
>
> Thom
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 01:11:32 -0400, Jay dedman wrote:
> > Thom and Daniell--
> >
> > Im writing to you becasue I have a question.
> > both of you have taught me a lot about torrents over the last several months.
> > and now i got a challenge.
> >
> > My friend Josh Kinsberg(who created http://www.vipodder.org/) had this
> > idea..which ive heard before...but never actualy seen.
> > its automated torrent script.
> > is this possible and how would someone start to make this?
> >
> > "The other thing I'd like to work on is something that allows people to
> > very easily publish Torrent files. I am not sure where to start
> > though. I want it to be as easy as dropping a file in a folder, or
> > uploading a file to a server, and then it automatically makes the
> > Torrent and adds it to your RSS feed. That would be the killer
> > publishing app! For some reason, BitTorrent still sonfuses the hell
> > out of me."
> >
> > Josh, hope yuou dont mind me sharing your idea...but im obsessed to
> > get this made.
> > its very needed if we want to trade videos effectively.
> >
> > Jay