[NTLUG:Discuss] BitTorrent on Libranet

[Burton M. Strauss III]

I sort of assumed you meant you were redistributing (internally) other
people's ISOs.

The tracker is just a file that describes what you are offering and where to
connect to.  In your case it would be the machine that's going to 'seed'
your ISOs out to the world.

The first person who starts to download has to download from the seed
machine.  But once s/he has even a small piece of the file, that 3rd (4th,
5th, ...) person can get it from ANYONE who has it. So while #2 is
downloading chunk 2, s/he is uploading chunk 1 to user #3.  So if there is a
community steadily downloading your file the seed server really only
shoulders 1/nth of the load.

Note that community thing.  If you are talking about ISOs that will not be
frequently downloaded, BT isn't the way to go.  BT works because there's
always - 24x7 - a couple dozen or hundred people downloading FedoraCore.  If
it's just one or two at a time, then the seed server will have to shoulder
the entire load.

The "File server's guide" from
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/guide.html - although the instructions say
they're for Windows, it really does cover the concepts pretty clearly...

Also see http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/#maketorrent

-----Burton

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org]On
> Behalf Of Robert Citek
> Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 6:03 PM
> To: NTLUG Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] BitTorrent on Libranet
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 05:12  PM, Burton M. Strauss III wrote:
> > Basiclly there's no such thing as a 'server'.
> >
> > Servers host the little files that tell you what the pieces are of,
> > say a
> > particular ISO.
>
> Admittedly, I'm a bit fuzzy on understanding BitTorrent.  I have
> connected to sites via BT and left my client running.  Now, I've
> created my own ISOs (and also a few large .tar.gz's) and would like to
> serve them up via BitTorrent.  I thought I would need a BT server.  But
> from what you said, apparently not.  If not, then how do I serve up
> these files via BT?
>
> BTW, my understanding of the jargon is that "tracker" = "BT server" but
> perhaps I'm mistaken.
>
> Regards,
> - Robert
>
>
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