Using ctorrent or other program to seed a torrent

[Bob Johnson]

On 6/28/09, Kelly Jones <kelly.terry.jones at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know how to use ctorrent to create a torrent file, but how do I
> actually seed the resulting file so that others can get it, and how do
> I 'register' myself w/ a tracker so that others will know what IP
> address to connect to, etc?

I haven't done it in a while, but after you create the .torrent file,
you upload the .torrent file to the tracker. That's basically all the
"registration" you need to do. The .torrent file contains the
information other clients need to download the file. You then start
seeding the file with your client, which connects to the tracker and
advertises the availability of the file.

To seed the file, you basically just do exactly what you would do if
you were trying to download the torrent, using the -E or -e option to
specify how long you want to seed after the download completes. You
should run ctorrent in the directory where you created the torrent (or
at least in a directory with a copy of the file and the .torrent
file), so it will already have the "downloaded" file. Seeding will
begin as soon as it gets itself organized.

I THINK that -e 0 will cause it to seed forever, but if not, -e 9999
will give you more than a year. I used to use -e 999, which is a
little over 41 days.

If you want it to get out of your way and hide in the background, run
it as a daemon, e.g.:

  ctorrent -d -e 9999 nameoffile.torrent


>
> Can ctorrent seed torrents, or do I need another program for that?

Yes, ctorrent automatically seeds for 72 hours after it finishes the
download, and you can adjust that.

-- Bob Johnson
   fbsdlists at gmail.com