If you have any information on or questions about Bit Torrent, post it here. I'll be regularly trimming this thread and will probably move all questions into the first post a while after they've been answered.

Bit Torrent

[useless ranting]Bit Torrent kicks the shit out of all other peer to peer applications, have a read about it if you want to know why (here's one explanation, have a google for it if that isn't good), but basically it tends to be faster and you don't have the 'waiting for a slot' problem other p2p applications have. It does have its downside though, particularly that it's bad for old files. It's exceptionally good for new files, particularly TV shows. I myself won't even watch TV now, and just download all the shows I like from bit torrent, no ads and no waiting for NZ to get shows a million years after the states.[/useless ranting]

Reasonably detailed guides:
here (from Wikipedia), here, here
and of course many more can be found.

My half-assed guide. This assumes you know two shits about this kind of thing.

EDIT: Synopsis has gotten his working without a proxy (see the post beneath this one), so if you can do it the same as him you won't need step 2, however this means you'll have to make your settings in Azureus like his rather than like mine. I suggest trying it his way as it's probably easier... I used no-ip because I already had it set up anyway.

1) Download Azureus. There are other clients but this is the most popular, and for good reason.
2) If you have ADSL, get the free no-ip proxy client, and forward port TCP 8245 on your router (the default port for no-ip).
3) If you have ADSL, forward ports TCP 6881 and UDP 6881 (you might not need the latter... ehh, forward it anyway) on your router (the bit torrent default ports). Edit (27/01/2006): I'm not going to explain how to do port forwarding here since it's different for every brand of router, so I suggest finding a guide on how to do it, preferably a guide for your specific brand of router (perhaps even the manual). However Dr Steve has posted a guide for his type of router, so see his post on this thread (posted Jan 27 2006, 12:18 AM).
4) Set up Azureus. Here's my set up, it has some kind of quick set up thingee, but after you've done that check your tools --> options page.
5) Try a torrent to see if it all goes properly. I suggest one of the torrents from here with a green health bar as a test (it's a funny show too :)).

Oh yeah, for those of you who like music, with Bit Torrent you'll usually find you have to download a whole heap of music (often all the artists work) to get the one or two songs you want. No problem, since you can tell Azureus not to download certain files in a package. So in this case, you could tell Azureus not to download anything except the few songs you want. To do this: right click on the file in the download list, click show details, click the files tab, right click on a file you don't want (you can select a lot of files with shift and/or control like many other applications) and set the priority to 'do not download'.

That sounds like a pain in the ass, but it can be quite good for finding obscure songs, and I find the music on Bit Torrent tends to be of higher quality than other networks. As usual, Bit Torrent > other crap.

I think that's it, there may be more shit I have to add later. Any questions, feel free to ask me.

Update (27/01/2006):

* Some ISPs limit bandwidth on certain ports, such as port 6881 which is used for bit torrent. If you are on one of these ISPs (I'm not sure which ones have it, probably best to assume yours does just to be safe) I suggest using a different port, say 16881. If you decide to do this, you'll want to change the port in your client (for Azureus: tools --> options --> connection, change the number in the box for 'Incoming TCP/UDP listen port). You will also need to forward port 16881 (or whatever port you chose) instead of port 6881, see the instructions above.

* XP Service Pack 2 imposes a limit of 10 on outbound connections. I've learnt recently that bit torrent can apparently be sped up by increasing this limit (although I myself haven't noticed any difference, YMMV). To do this:

1) Download this zip file (40kB).

2) Run the program inside of it, increasing the outbound connections limit from 10 to 50.

3) Go into Azureus, tools --> options --> connection, increase 'max simultaneous outbound connection attempts' to 40 or so. If you don't see this option, go to tools --> options --> mode and change the 'user proficiency' level to advanced (yay you're advanced! :clap:).

Hmmm, I can't remember how I got my copy of Azureus working without mucking about with no-ip...

*checks his setting to refresh his memory*

Ah, as far as I figure, Azureus and the forwarded ports are bound to the computer name, and not a specific IP address. At least that was my reasoning at the time, and it seems to work.

Azureus settings
Firewall settings

Your computer name can be found under
Start->Connect to->Show all connections->Advanced->Network Identification

Could this have anything to do with the fact that you have an ADSL modem whereas I have a router (thus, my connection goes through another device with its own IP address)?

How to forward ports?

so you have an adsl router I assume?

what kind is it?

Nope, have DSL modem. oob, this could be a little better explained. Guide's a little vague.

/edit: modem is Dynalink RTA1320

okay, I have a dynalink 1335 so I assume that it works the same on both...

• go to your modem settings page (http://192.168.1.1 for me)
• go to advanced
• click virtual server
• click add
• check the "user defined" radio box
• then enter your computer's ip address where it says "Forward to Internal Host IP Address:"
• then you need to fill in the port range that your bittorrent client uses in the little table below (the same port start and port end for external and internal)

Ooh this thread. I've learnt a few things since making this guide, will edit my original guide post in this thread to reflect this.

Yeah I didn't bother to explain port forwarding as everyone has a different brand of router, so look for other guides on this kind of thing.

Or just read Dr Steves handy post :) (which I'll refer to in my guide on this thread).

Downloaded 25 gigs, uploaded 7!