Is it possible to use bittorrent for a fileserver [closed]
I would like to set up a file server that is searchable, preferable via the web. I'm wondering if it would be possible to achieve this using the bittorrent protocol and have a single client sharing every single torrent on the server. I guess I could use some available tracker solution for the webinterface or write one myself.
My concerns are the if there are any limits to the number of torrents a single client can share since this may potentially be >10k torrents.
The number of downloading clients is very small, only myself and my relatives. The idea is to have a single place to host everything from vacation photos to musical creations.
Is there any other options for this kind of file server. It should also be easy to upload files to the server.
In theory it is possible but why would you want to? If you are only going to have a few people looking at it, then you loose the benefits of distributed bandwidth.
I would rather recommend plain old FTP. You get your directory listing for free as it's part of the protocol and people don't need an extra client, as all good browsers have a basic FTP Client built in. Only for uploading they need a FTP Program.
BitTorrent will really get messy here, as people cannot just upload stuff - they need to create torrent files for every file and then add the file to the server. The BT Client on the server then needs to be made aware of this and add the .torrent file to it's queue, and only then the user can "upload" his actual file.
- Bittorent tracker is pretty easy to setup, I know couple of PHP-based, but they are mostly in Russian (TorrentPier - phpbb2 interface, TBDev). You also can also look at XBTT - written in C++ - it can manage millions of peers on single box, but web interface for it is kinda hard to find.
UPD: I've found this project xbtit they offer it for free under BSD license. You can try demo here. - I think Direct Connect with simple web interface for exchanging magnet links can be more suitable for you. There are plenty of hubs that you can choose, from windows 1-clicks to *nix-only with lua and python scripting support. Just most popular ones: PtokaX, YnHUB, VerliHub).
- And of course FTP is still alive! You can easily combine FTP storage with HTTP and easy to install&manage hand made site