Howto install Torrentflux-b4rt on Ubuntu

What is Torrentflux-b4rt?

What is Torrentflux-b4rt you say? Torrentflux-b4rt is a sophisticated web-based PHP BitTorrent client based off the original Torrentflux. It allows you to use an old linux server as your happily obedient bittorrent client , while you gallivant around town feeding it torrents. Its greatest feature is freeing you from being constantly connected to the internet while downloading.

This guide is intended to be followed by a linux user confident with the command line and in full control of a server they wish to employ the use of TorrentFlux with. Good luck.

Base System

I am going to describe how to setup a basic server with these sources:

• Ubuntu Server 8.04 LTS (hardy)
• basic apt sources. (hardy main, hardy-updates main, hardy-securrity main)

Installation

Basic Requirements

• LAMP Stack
• Python
• Perl
• A custom transmission-cli bittorrent client interface

LAMP ( Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP )

A cleaver guide has already been written Installing LAMP On Ubuntu For Newbies.

PHPMyAdmin

This gives you a web interface into the MySql server. Greatly simplifies life with MySql.

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Install extra packaged needed for Torrentflux

sudo apt-get install zip unzip unrar php5-cli php5-gd perl python libxml-dom-perl libxml-simple-perl libthreads-shared-perl libdigest-sha1-perl libhtml-parser-perl transmission-cli

These are what I found missing from my install. You may come up with some missing packages 'apt-get' to install packages and google to find the package names.

Install Torrentflux-b4rt

Download the latest package Torrentflux-b4rt package

From your home directory:

cd ~
wget http://prdownload.berlios.de/tf-b4rt/torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2.tar.bz2
tar xjvf torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2.tar.bz2

Create the custom Transmission-cli client

Download the Transmission 1.06 Source

cd ~/torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2/clients
wget http://download.m0k.org/transmission/files/transmission-1.06.tar.bz2
tar jxvf transmission-1.06.tar.bz2
tar jxvf transmission-1.06.tar.bz2
tar jxvf Transmission-1.06_tfCLI-svn3356.tar.bz2
cp Transmission-1.06_tfCLI-svn3356/cli/transmissioncli.c transmission-1.06/cli/transmissioncli.c

This overwrites the original source code for the Transmission-cli a new version extended for the Torrentflux-b4rt interface.

Install from Transmission from source

./configure
make
make install

This should install the transmission-cli binary in /usr/local/bin/transmission-cli

Copy the Torrentflux-b4rt html directory to a web visible location

cp ~/torrentflux-b4rt_1.0-beta2/html/ /var/www/torrentflux -R

Create the Torrentflux database and user using PHPMyAdmin

Log Into PHPMyAdmin

Log into your phpmyadmin interface using your MySQL root user/password by going to:

http://yourserverip/phpmyadmin

Create the User and Database

Steps to follow from the phpmyadmin frontpage:

• Click the 'Privileges' link from the home page.
• Then click on the "Add a new User" link.
• Create a new user named 'torrentflux', set a strong password, select "Create database with same name and grant all privileges", click go.

Run the TorrentFlux-b4rt setup.php script

Point your browser to:

http://yourserverip/torrentflux/setup.php

Follow the directions onscreen to finish the setup. Give it your MySQL username, password, and database name. It should solve the rest.

Additional Resources

In case you get stuck or would like to more information check out these pages:

• TorrentFlux-b4rt - Includes support forms and plugins to extend functionality
• TorrentFlux - the original TorrentFlux
• Transmission - Cross Platform BitTorrent Client
• Linux.com - TorrentFlux: A BitTorrent client on a server
• TorrentFreak.com's article on "Seedboxes"

Update on Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 2:18PM by mark

The Current State of TorrentFlux

TorrentFlux-b4rt has not been in development since March 2008 and the original TorrentFlux has not been in development since June 2008. There are known problems getting this installed under newer ubuntu installations mostly relating to new versions of PHP.

Where to go next

I have moved my seedbox to a rtorrent based install with showRSS for automatic RSS downloads of TV shows. This does not give a nice web interface but the command line interface works nice for my needs.

TransmissionBT seems like a great alternative. It includes a graphical, web, and command line interface. Also it has many plugins available including one for RSS.

Comments

[Seedbox]

While I love the gui of torrentflux, I just dont think it can cut it as a torrent client.

[Mark]

I have been using Torrentflux and Torrentflux-b4rt for about 3 years. It works great for me as I don't run x-windows on my server and I don't want a client on my roaming laptop. The downside is that the project are no longer maintained and require the patched version of transmission.

Any other linux server or no x-window web gui torrent solutions?

[maxxas]

hi mark how much cost if you install for my im try install 3 week now ;(

[JohnnyRed]

Hi,
thanks for the guide. I have only one question: will it work if i make a make a distro upgrade to 9.10 or later 10.04?

[kintaro]

take a look here: http://www.torrentflux-ng.org/