Aria2 shell script and batch file

I wrote a BASH shell script and a DOS batch file that can be used to download files using aria2 — Aria2 is a command-line tool for downloading files. The script and the batch file take 2 arguments; the first one is for the bittorrent hash in 40-digit hexadecimal number and the second one is for arbitrary one-word description.

• aria2.bat
  
• aria2.sh
  

aria2.bat can be used on Windows, and aria2.sh can be used on Linux and *BSD. Make sure that aria2c is in PATH. For example, if you want to download an ISO file for the OpenSUSE DVD, you would type something like:

aria2.bat 198472f5217d843cceb1a4c82233f009ed6608af opensuse-dvd-586

To find the value of a bittorrent hash (that long hex number), you can cut it from a magnet link you find on a Web site — Magnet links allow you to download actual files without first having to download bittorrent files (*.torrent). When you see a magnet sign, right-click on it to display the shortcut menu and select Copy Link Location.

Then, paste it somewhere, for example, inside the URL address bar. The hash value comes after the btih: string.

After you find the bittorrent hash, use it as the first argument to the script and make up anything for the second argument, as shown in the example above.

Compile Aria2 1.15.2 with MinGW

Aria2 is a command-line download utility. It can be used to download files quickly from http(s), ftp, bittorrent, magnet and metalink locations. I prefer this handy tool over other programs, such as Free Download Manager and Frostwire because it's lean, fast and full of features. It took me a couple of days to compile Aria2 with all the features available. The following step-by-step guide will help you build your own aria2 program (aria2c.exe) the way I did.

1. Install MinGW
   

   Follow one of the following guides to install MingW:

   
   
   • Setting up MinGW64 with Cygwin
     
   • Installing MinGW on Windows
   
   
   
2. POSIX Threads
   

   Download the source for Pthreads library (pthreads-w32-2-9-1-release.tar.gz) and compile it like this:

   
   

   make clean GC-static
   cp pthread.h semaphore.h sched.h /mingw/include/
   cp libpthreadGC2.a /mingw/lib/libpthread.a

   
   
   
3. zlib
   

   Zlib is needed by the OpenSSL library below. Download the zlib source and compile it like this:

   
   

   make -f win32/Makefile.gcc
   make -f win32/Makefile.gcc install BINARY_PATH=/mingw/bin INCLUDE_PATH=/mingw/include LIBRARY_PATH=/mingw/lib

   
   
   
4. OpenSSL
   

   Aria2 requires either GnuTLS or OpenSSL for secure transfers. In this guide, OpenSSL is chosen over GnuTLS. Use 7-zip to unpack the tarball because it contains symbolic links.

   
   

   ./Configure -DHAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC -DPTW32_STATIC_LIB -L/mingw/lib -lz -lpthread -lws2_32 --prefix=/mingw threads zlib mingw
   make
   make install

   
   
   

5. Expat

   
   

   Aria2 can use either LibXML2 or Expat for XML parsing. In this guide, Expat will be used. Download the expat source and compile expat like this:

   
   

   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared --enable-static
   make 
   make install

   
   
   

6. C-Ares

   
   

   C-Ares is a C library that performs DNS requests and resolves DNS names asynchronously. Download the C-ares source from c-ares.haxx.se and unpack it. Then, compile C-Ares as follows:

   
   

   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw --disable-shared CPPFLAGS='-I/mingw/include -DCARES_STATICLIB'
   make
   make install

   
   
   

7. SQLite 3

   
   

   Download the SQLite source (sqlite-amalgamation-3071300.zip) and build SQLite 3:

   
   

   gcc -O2 -DNDEBUG=1 -DTHREADSAFE=1 -c *.c
   ar ru /mingw/lib/libsqlite3.a sqlite3.o
   cp -iv *.h /mingw/include

   
   

   Create sqlite3.pc and put it in /mingw/lib/pkgconfig.

   
   

   prefix=/mingw
   exec_prefix=${prefix}
   libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib
   includedir=${prefix}/include
   
   Name: SQLite
   Description: SQL database engine
   Version: 3.5
   
   Libs: -L${libdir} -lsqlite3
   Cflags: -I${includedir}

   
   
   

8. aria2c

   
   

   Finally, we are ready to compile Aria2. Download the Aria2 source from aria2.sf.net and unpack the source. Then, configure aria2 as follows:

   
   

   ./configure --build=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/mingw --enable-threads=posix --with-ca-bundle=ca-bundle.crt --disable-nls LIBS='-lpthread -lws2_32 -lcares -lz' CPPFLAGS='-DPTW32_STATIC_LIB -DCARES_STATICLIB'
   

   
   
   
   
   

   Then, issue the following commands to compile Aria2:

   
   

   make
   make install

   
   
   
9. Optionally, strip and compress the executable aria2c.exe.
   
   

   strip aria2c.exe
   upx --best --strip-relocs=0 aria2c.exe

   
   

To download my Windows builds of aria2, go here.

Aria2c Usage

aria2c --file-allocation=prealloc ftp://192.168.1.64/pardus.iso

If aria2 aborts a download due to a connection error, you can resume the download any time using aria2c like this:

aria2c -c ftp://192.168.1.64/pardus.iso

To download files from URL's written in a file urls.txt to a folder Downloads, run aria2 as follows. The urls.txt should contain one download per line with URL's seperated by a tab:

aria2c -i urls.txt -d Downloads

Compile Aria2c on Debian Linux

Aria2 is a fast download utility that you use in the Command Prompt or xterm. To compile aria2 for Linux, install the following packages.

• ca-certificates
  
• g++
  
• make
  
• libexpat1-dev
  
• libsqlite3-dev
  
• libssl-dev
  
• zlib1g-dev

Although Debian 5.0 Lenny has libc-ares2, Debian 4.0 Etch and Debian 3.1 Sarge don't have it. As a user of Debian Sarge, I had to compile c-ares myself to enable asynchronous DNS resolution in Aria2c. I downloaded c-ares source from c-ares.haxx.se and compiled it statically.

tar xzvf c-ares-1.7.0.tar.gz

cd c-ares-1.7.0/

./configure --prefix=/usr --build=i586-pc-linux-gnu --disable-debug --disable-shared CFLAGS='-DCARES_STATICLIB'

make

make install

Then, I downloaded Aria2 source from aria2.sf.net and compiled it like this:

tar xzvf aria2-1.8.0.tar.gz

cd aria2-1.8.0

./configure --build=i586-pc-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --enable-bittorrent --enable-metalink --enable-threads=posix --with-ca-bundle="/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt" LIBS='-lrt -lcares' CPPFLAGS='-DCARES_STATICLIB'

You can optionally link aria2 with static libraries libssl and libcrypto. This is useful when you move aria2c to another system with a different version of OpenSSL library. To do so, open every Makefile in the aria2 source directory and change every line containing “-L/usr/local/lib -lssl -lcrypto” to “/usr/lib/libssl.a /usr/lib/libcrypto.a”. Then, run the following commands to build aria2.

make
make install

An executable /usr/bin/aria2c will be installed. To use it, open a xterm or rxvt and type its command. To see brief command-line options, type aria2c -h.