Torrenting data
Azureus lets you share your content easily, whether you create the torrent yourself or not. To share data, you will need, well, the data to be shared and a tracker. A tracker is basically something that keeps track of the torrent and informs a peer about other peers interested in the data: a tracker "hosts" a torrent. It's the first thing Azureus contacts when you load a torrent.
So, to create a torrent, decide what tracker you are going to use:
- you can find some "public trackers" on the internet, which means you can use them freely and they will "host" your torrent,
- you can use your own Azureus tracker, the url will be your own ip so it's best to use a "dyndns" account that will link your ip to the name you want, like mytracker.dyndns.org,
- or you can put your torrent on the DHT:
- you don't need a tracker url
- you can distribute the torrent easily through a "magnet" link (a short link that people can use to load your torrent in Azureus)
Create a torrent manually
Use the File Menu to access the torrent creation wizard or click on the "blank page" icon in the toolbar.
The first thing now is to setup the "tracking" method.
Tracking method
You can either use a tracker or the DHT.
Tracker
You will provide a url of a server hosting your file to which clients will connect when they launch your torrent.
your tracker
Use the tracker embedded in Azureus, configured with your ip address.
another tracker
Use the url of the tracker you chose.
multiple trackers
You can add several tracker urls to make up for a potential failure of a tracker.
other networks
You can choose to add information in the torrent to allow the torrent to be published in other sharing networks.
DHT
Your torrent will be published in the DHT: the network formed by all Azureus users. No server is necessary.
File or Directory
Do you want to share a file or a directory?
Comment
Write a small description of the torrent or whatever you want to pass along.
Select your File or Directory
Pretty intuitive.
Torrent File
Now more on the .torrent file itself.
Save directory
Where do you want to save the .torrent file?
Options
You can specify what you want the .torrent to do
start seeding
once created, the torrent will be added to Azureus and will seed.
host the torrent
once created, the torrent will be "hosted" on you tracker (only available of course if you choose to create the torrent with your tracker)
keep the torrent private
this option prevents the torrent from being accessible via the DHT and a peer from getting peers via peer exchange.
use the DHT as backup
this option will not allow the torrent to use the DHT as a backup if the tracker for the torrent stops responding.
These two options keep the torrent "limited" to the people who have a direct access to the tracker or the torrent.
On the other hand, you can choose to just select the data you want to share and leave the innerworkings of the torrent creation to Azureus.
As of 2.4.0.0, the default sharing method is "decentralized", so you don't have to setup a tracker to share data. Just select the file you want to share and you're done.
Use Options > Sharing
You might want to share data on a regular basis. To that end, you can configure a specific directory to be the default "sharing" directory: anything you put in that directory will automatically be shared.
Specify the directory here.
default sharing method
here you specify whether you want to use your tracker or the DHT to share your data, as well as what kind of protocol is to be used: HTTP(S) or UDP.
options
- this option prevents the torrent from being accessible via the DHT and a peer from getting peers via peer exchange.
- this option will not allow the torrent to use the DHT as a backup if the tracker for the torrent stops responding.
- You can choose to add information in the torrent to allow the torrent to be published in other sharing networks.
scanning period
How often do you want the directory to be scanned for new resources to share?
comment
Write a small description of the torrent or whatever you want to pass along. (same comment for every shared resource)