EZtorrent 1.3

EZtorrent project is a program that simplifies the process of publishing content via BitTorrent.

EZtorrent automates the process of generating .torrent metainfo files, as well as starting trackers and seeders.

Although its very easy to download files BitTorrent, distributing your own files via BitTorrent yourself is not a comparatively straightforward process. You need to carefully generate .torrent metainfo files, start a tracker process, then start a seeder process for each individual .torrent file. EZtorrent combines all of this into one, easy step. Heres a "Quick Start" version of how easy it is to distribute BitTorrent content with EZtorrent:

Download and install BitTorrent according to its instructions.

Download EZtorrent, unpack the source code, run ./configure, make, and make install. See the INSTALL file for more information.

Run the following commands:

ezt create mytorrents /var/www/html/torrents /var/mytorrents
www.example.com 6969

Now, copy some files into /var/mytorrents

ezt start # Or "ezt restart", if ezt is already running

Thats it. ezt reads a list of all the files in /var/mytorrents. For each file, a corresponding .torrent file is created and placed in /var/www/html/torrents. Presumably this directory is published over the web with Apache, or some other HTTP server, where others can find them. Then, ezt starts a tracker process running on TCP port 6969 (the above example uses www.example.com as the DNS name of the machine running EZtorrent). Finally, ezt starts a seeder for each .torrent file.

New files can be added to, or removed from, /var/mytorrents at any time. After adding or removing files, run "ezt restart". ezt takes care of creating any new .torrents that need to be created, removing any obsolete .torrents of removed files, and starting or stopping the corresponding seeders. It is also possible to create different directories for different sets of files. You just need to specify a separate TCP port for each directory; ezt also takes care of starting (or stopping) a separate tracker process for each configured directory and port.

Although this is all that you need to know about using EZtorrent, be sure to review some additional important information in INSTALL and NEWS files, and EZtorrents manual page.