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.

Bittorrent Info Hash Values for Windows 8 ISO

Windows 8 ISO files have the following BTIH hash values. Use them with my aria2 script to download Windows 8.

1. en_windows_8_x86_dvd_915417.iso
   
   C5D92B32277685436DEDE9957B80083D26062C03
   
2. en_windows_8_x64_dvd_915440.iso
   
   144C7E2B46103FF84F83A1E6A12D66B740F00CF6
   

To Build Transmission-Daemon for Windows

Transmission is a free bittorrent application available on Linux. It is a pretty neat tool compared to other bittorrent software. It is possible to compile and use Transmission on Windows, thanks to Cygwin. First, install Cygwin using the Cygwin installer(setup.exe). I set the Root directory to C:\Cygwin and chose to install the following packages in addition to base packages.

• bison
  
• gettext-devel
  
• libtool
  
• make
  
• binutils
  
• gcc4-g++
  
• patch
  
• pkg-config
  

Compile zlib.

./configure --prefix=/usr --static
make
cp -iv zconf.h zlib.h /usr/include
cp -iv libz.a /usr/lib

Build OpenSSL.

./Configure -DHAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC -lz -lpthread threads zlib --prefix=/usr cygwin
make
make install

Build CURL.

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-shared --with-ssl --with-ca-bundle=ca-bundle.crt
make
make install

Compile libevent.

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-shared
make 
make install

Lastly, build transmission.

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-shared --enable-static --disable-nls --without-gtk CPPFLAGS=-DHAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC
make
make install

If you get snprintf error with libutp, insert the following line into utp.cpp:

extern int snprintf(char *, size_t, const char *, ...);

Transmission-Daemon for Windows

Here are my Windows builds of transmission-daemon. I built it with Cygwin's GCC compiler. 7-zip or a newest version of unzip should be used to unpack them.

• transmission-2.60-win32.zip
  
• transmission-2.42-win32.zip

The package contains the following files:

• Cygwin1.dll
  
  Cygwin Unix layer


• transmission-cli.exe
  
  Command-line Bittorrent Client


• transmission-create.exe
  
  Create .torrent files


• transmission-daemon.exe
  
  Transmission server


• transmission-edit.exe
  
  Edit .torrent files


• transmission-remote.exe
  
  Control the transmission daemon


• transmission-show.exe
  
  Show .torrent contents

Unpack the package into a folder, for example, C:\Program Files\Transmission. Then, create a shortcut with the following command:

transmission-daemon -b -o -m -ep -a 127.0.0.1,192.168.*.* --utp

Double-clicking the shortcut will not open any window. However, transmission-daemon is silently running in the background. You can control the daemon with any Web browser by opening this local Web address:

http://127.0.0.1:9091/

Although you can control transmission-daemon with a Web browser, it's not a pretty thing to do so. I recommend using transmission-remote-dotnet or transmission-remote-gui. The following is a screenshot for Transmission Remote .NET which is written in C#.



And, below you can see Transmission Remote GUI that's written in Pascal.

The settings for the daemon are stored in the ~/.config/transmission-daemon folder. Make sure the HOME environment variable points correctly to your folder.

Also, TRANSMISSION_WEB_HOME environment variable should be correctly set up to use the web browser interface.

To learn how to build transmission-daemon for Windows, read this post.

Compiling MLDonkey for Linux

MLDonkey is a multi-protocol P2P file-sharing program for Windows, Mac and Linux. Unlike eMule, MLDonkey supports Bittorrent, FastTrack and DirectConnect networks, too. Compiling MLDonkey requires OCaml compiler toolchain. First, download and install the following Ocaml stuff. These are names of required Debian packages:

ocaml-native-compilers

camlp4

ocaml-nox

Then, install these libraries:

zlib1g-dev

libbz-dev

libgd2-xpm-dev

libmagic-dev

Now, you are ready to compile MLDonkey. Change directory to the MLDonkey source tree and type these commands:

./configure --prefix=/usr --build=i586-pc-linux-gnu

make release.mlnet.static

You'll get a tarball, for example, mldonkey-3.0.0.static.i586-Linux_glibc-2.7.tar.bz2. Keep it at a safe place. Now, extract the tarball to a directory, for example, /opt. In the extracted folder, you'll find an executable, mlnet. This is just a command-line program, so you need a GUI frontend, such as Sancho.