Torrents are an excellent way to share data publicly. As you may already know as a Linux user, many Linux distro developers choose to share their operating system in the form of a torrent download. This allows someone to publish data and rely on the “swarm” (the users that are uploading or downloading the torrent’s contents) to continue hosting it.
If a torrent has a healthy amount of seeders (users that are uploading the torrent’s data to the swarm), then downloaders can expect a very fast download, as their torrent client can connect to numerous uploaders in order to retrieve different portions of the torrent’s files simultaneously. If you have some files to share and you think this would be a good way to do it, you can learn how to create a torrent file.
In this tutorial, you will see how to create and share a torrent on Linux. Creating a torrent file is done with a BitTorrent client – the same application which also seeds (uploads) and leeches (downloads) torrents. You can do this from either command line or GUI, depending on which BitTorrent client you choose to use. We will cover the step by step instructions for both methods below.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to create a torrent with Deluge GUI client
- How to create a torrent with Transmission-CLI command line client
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Any Linux distro |
| Software | Deluge, Transmission-CLI |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
How to create a torrent with Deluge GUI client
In this section, we will use the Deluge torrent client to create a .torrent file. You are free to use any torrent client of your choice for this purpose, but Deluge is a popular one available on all major Linux distros.
You can use the appropriate command below to install Deluge with your system’s package manager.
To install Deluge on Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint:
$ sudo apt install deluge
To install Deluge on Fedora, CentOS, AlmaLinux, and Red Hat:
$ sudo dnf install deluge
To install Deluge on Arch Linux and Manjaro:
$ sudo pacman -S deluge
- Open Deluge and click on File > Create Torrent.
Open the Create Torrent option from the Deluge menus - In the new menu you opened up, click on Add File or Add Folder to begin adding your selected data to the torrent.
Search for files and/or folders to add to your torrent You may optionally fill out the Author and Comments field in this menu.
- Next, click on the Trackers tab. You will need to add one or more tracker URLs or IPs, as this is how your torrent client finds other users in the swarm. These servers will keep track of who is currently downloading or uploading the torrent, and connect you to other peers as needed. You can search the net for a free tracker to use, or create your own announce server if necessary. Insert the URLs into this space.
Add tracker URLs - Click Save when you are done, and you will be asked to save the
.torrentfile to some place on your PC. You should then add this torrent to Deluge (or some other BitTorrent client) so you can begin seeding (sharing) its contents with downloaders.
Adding the new torrent to a client - All that is left to do now is share your
.torrentfile to prospective downloaders. There are plenty of websites online where you can share your free work by uploading the torrent file to their registry.
How to create a torrent with Transmission-CLI command line client
In this section, we will use the Transmission-CLI torrent client to create a .torrent file. You are free to use any torrent client of your choice for this purpose, but Transmission-CLI is a popular command line based client and is available on all major Linux distros.
You can use the appropriate command below to install Transmission-CLI with your system’s package manager.
To install Transmission-CLI on Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint:
$ sudo apt install transmission-cli
To install Transmission-CLI on Fedora, CentOS, AlmaLinux, and Red Hat:
$ sudo dnf install transmission-cli
To install Transmission-CLI on Arch Linux and Manjaro:
$ sudo pacman -S transmission-cli
- You can create your torrent file with the
transmission-createcommand. In the following command, we will create a torrent file for themy_rorrentdirectory. You can use the-toption to specify which trackers to use in your torrent.
$ transmission-create /home/linuxconfig/my_torrent/ -t udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80
- Next, add your torrent to Transmission to begin seeding it.
$ transmission-remote -a ~/my_torrent.torrent
- The only thing left to do is share your
.torrentfile to those that need to download your seeded content.
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to create and share a torrent on a Linux system. The process can be done via a variety of popular graphical and command line BitTorrent clients. We used Deluge and Transmission-CLI in these examples, but there are many other choices available.
