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ruTorrent

ruTorrent is a popular Bittorrent client for power users, which includes the unique ability (among our torrent apps) to create torrents from its web UI.

Get Elf Hosted ruTorrent from $0.1/day 🪄

Screenshot of ruTorrent

How do I access ruTorrent?

ruTorrent will be available from your dashboard (https://<username>.elfhosted.com>), or directly, at https://<username>-rutorrent.elfhosted.com

How do I use it ?

Can I use public trackers?

Yes. To avoid abuse, all our VPN clients require you bring your own VPN credentials, which are then attached to your app pod - the torrent client won't start unless the VPN is connected. Thus, you can use public or private trackers.

If you don't already have a VPN, we've found Private Internet Access (PIA) to work very well - including automated port-forwarding.

Set inbound port

If you're using Private Internet Access, or ProtonVPN, then your inbound port will be automatically configured for you.

If you're using a different VPN provider, you may need to manually configure a port assigned to you by your VPN provider. In this case, use FileBrowser to create /config/rutorrent/forwarded-port-override, populated with the port number you'd like rtorrent to listen on.

For example, for port 40000, you'd ensure that this file contained only the string 40000.

Restart rutorrent using ElfBot, and the port will be fixed at the one you specified.

Make permanent config changes

ruTorrent (really, rtorrent) can be tricker to customize than our other torrent clients. The GUI allows you to make some temporary changes, but to effect permanent changes, use FileBrowser to edit the config file at config/rutorrent/.rtorrent.rc.

Set rtorrent download path

In config/rutorrent/.rtorrent.rc, you'll find config like this:

    method.insert = cfg.basedir, private|const|string, (cat,"/data/rtorrent/")
    method.insert = cfg.download, private|const|string, (cat,"/storage/elfstorage/downloads/")
    method.insert = cfg.download_complete, private|const|string, (cat,(cfg.download),"completed/")

To change the default ruTorrent download path, replace /storage/elfstorage/downloads/ in the config above with your target directory, and restart ruTorrent using ElfBot

Using ephemeral /tmp

ruTorrent can be configured to download torrents to one location, and then move them to another location upon completion. This can alleviate disk I/O constraints during the initial download process, speeding up the overall download and reducing resource usage.

Our ruTorrent pods are provisioned with a 1TB, HDD-backed, ephemeral /tmp volume. Ephemeral volumes only exist for as long as the pod is running, and so while unsuitable for long-term storage (because they are recreated upon restart), they are ideal for temporary, I/O-heavy operations like torrenting, unpacking, uncompressing, etc.

To use the 1TB ephemeral /tmp volume with rutorrent, use FileBrowser to edit the config file at config/rutorrent/.rtorrent.rc, and uncomment this line:

    # directory.default.set = (cat,(cfg.download_temp))

Comment out this line:

    directory.default.set = (cat,(cfg.download_complete))

And finally, uncomment the highlighted lines below:

    # Move finished (no need Autotools/Automove plugin on ruTorrent)
    # method.insert = d.get_finished_dir, simple, "cat=$cfg.download_complete=,$d.custom1="
    # method.insert = d.move_to_complete, simple, "d.directory.set=$argument.1=; execute=mkdir,-p,$argument.1=; execute=mv,-u,$argument.0=,$argument.1=; d.save_full_session="
    # method.set_key = event.download.finished,move_complete,"d.move_to_complete=$d.data_path=,$d.get_finished_dir="

Restart ruTorrent using ElfBot - now new downloads will go to /tmp, and upon completion, they'll be moved to the permanent location you specified in cfg.download above.

What happens if my pod restarts before a download is completed?

Then the contents of /tmp will be lost. Restarts will be infrequent, occurring at most once during the maintenance window. Provided you don't have any in-progress torrents when this happens, you won't be affected. This design won't suit users who download large torrent files with few seeders over several days, but it does offer considerable advantages to speeding up small, discrete downloads.

Use ruTorrent with MyAnonamouse (MaM)

MaM has particularly stringent rules regarding the source IP of your traffic. Since our torrent clients already require a VPN connection, we comply with the one-IP-per-account rule, but since VPN IP changes when the pod restarts, we've had to make some allowances for updating your "dynamic seedbox IP".

Here's a thread in the MaM support forum illustrating how to integrate ElfHosted apps with MaM.

ruTorrent also works with

How do I get support for ruTorrent?

  1. For general use of ruTorrent, refer to the official site or to one of the links below.
  2. For specific support re your ElfHosted configuration / account, see the ElfHosted support options!

You can contribute directly to the development of ruTorrent using the following:

ruTorrent resources