rTorrent

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rTorrent is a highly configurable torrent client based on libtorrent and ncurses.

Installation

Install net-p2p/rtorrent:

→ Information about USE flags

USE flag	Default	Recommended	Description
color	No		Add custom color support for torrent list
daemon	No		Uses app-misc/screen to daemonize this application
debug	No	No	Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/qa/backtraces.xml
ipv6	No		Adds support for IP version 6
test	No	No	Workaround to pull in packages needed to run with FEATURES=test. Portage-2.1.2 handles this internally, so don't set it in make.conf/package.use anymore
xmlrpc	No		Support for xml-rpc library

root # emerge --ask rtorrent

Configuration

The RTorrent configuration is stored in the user's ~/.rtorrent.rc. A lot can be configured, for this reason, the configuration is divided in sections.

Basics

These options are pretty straightforward:

File/home/user/.rtorrent.rc

# Global upload and download rate in KiB. "0" for unlimited.
#download_rate = 0
upload_rate = 75

# Default directory to save the downloaded torrents.
directory = /home/user/media/

# Default session directory. When restarting rtorrent, the torrents from this directory will be restarted.
session = /home/wim/media/session

Watching a Directory

You can configure rTorrent to watch one or more directories for new torrent files and queue them automatically. You can also set a download directory for each watch directory (rather than downloading to the default download directory).

File/home/user/.rtorrent.rc

# A watch directory downloading to the default location
schedule = watch_directory_3,5,300,load_start=/home/user/media/watch/*.torrent

# Watch directories with customized download directories
schedule = watch_directory_1,5,60,"load_start=/home/user/media/watch_series/*.torrent,d.set_directory=/home/user/media/series"
schedule = watch_directory_2,5,5,"load_start=/home/wim/media/watch_music/*.torrent,d.set_directory=/home/user/media/music"
schedule = watch_directory_3,5,300,"load_start=/home/user/media/watch_movies/*.torrent,d.set_directory=/home/user/media/movies"

# Restart torrents that have been copied back and stop those that have been deleted
schedule = tied_directory,1,30,start_tied=
schedule = untied_directory,1,30,close_untied=

# Close torrents when diskspace is low.
schedule = low_diskspace,5,60,close_low_diskspace=100M

Note

Several commands can be scheduled to run depending on two values, start and interval. The command in question is called every interval, beginning at start. The values can be seconds or a time format.

File/home/user/.rtorrent.rc

# Execute command after 5 seconds and again every 5 minutes
schedule = some_command,5,300,foo

# Execute command immediately and at 03:00
schedule = some_command,0,03:00,foo
default

Ratio Handling

You can control seed time by making it dependent on each torrent's ratio. Each torrent is seeded for a minimum of min.set percent. if a total of upload.set has been uploaded. If upload.set is not reached, it will seed a maximum of max.set percent. Read the wiki on the libtorrent site for different ratio groups.

File/home/user/.rtorrent.rc

# First, enable the default ratio group, which controls all loaded torrents. Set the limits for the group next.
ratio.enable=
ratio.min.set=200
ratio.max.set=300
ratio.upload.set=20M

Adding a self-signed certificate

Some trackers use SSL certificates, however most are not signed for various reasons. rTorrent uses the database located in /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt. You also may want to use HTTPS because some ISPs (like Comcast) perform bandwidth shaping, effectively slowing down BitTorrent (regardless of whether your use is legitimate).

Add a certificate (if the domain was mytracker.net and the port was 443):

root # openssl s_client -connect mytracker.net:443 </dev/null 2>/dev/null | sed -n '/BEGIN CERTIFICATE/,/END CERTIFICATE/p' >> /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

You need to re-hash after adding a certificate:

root # c_rehash

Try with curl:

user $ curl https://mytracker.net:443

You should not get a warning regarding the self-signed certificate.

Restart rTorrent. If using the daemon:

root # /etc/init.d/rtorrentd restart