Sharing LNX-BBC Files with Bittorrent

Bittorrent is a swarm file transfer system in which downloaders help share pieces of a file with other downloaders in a tit-for-tat exchange. It helps alleviate network load on servers that have popular files. The LNX-BBC project offers its ISO images and snapshot tarballs as bittorrent files, and encourages others to help share and mirror them with bittorrent.

This document will explain how to set up bittorrent for various situations, and help the reader understand the way in which bittorrent functions.

  1. How it works
    1. The Tracker
    2. The Downloader
  2. How to set it up
    1. The one-file downloader
    2. The launchmany
      1. btlaunchmanycurses.py
      2. btlaunchmany.py
      3. After your launchmany is running
  3. Frequently Asked Questions
    1. So this is like some warez thing, right? Does this mean people are going to swap bootlegged software and music through me?
    2. I'm behind NAT. How can I serve anything?
    3. So do I need to run the tracker?
    4. I'm using Debian's packages, and I get an ImportError when I try to run any of the downloaders!