I started because I needed a tracker for another project but the tracker turned to be more fun to make.
I did glance over other trackers code but their code tends to be either overly complex or too simple so not very useful.
So far its been 3 months of revenge bedtime procrastination.
While this is not a client like qbittorrent I have ideas for a seedbox-oriented client project in the future.
A torrent tracker is basically the world’s most antisocial matchmaking service that knows who has what files but refuses to actually store anything itself, like that friend who always knows where the party is but never hosts one. When your BitTorrent client asks “hey who’s got that Linux ISO,” the tracker dumps a list of IP addresses faster than a startup pivoting after their Series A falls through. Your client then connects to these strangers (seeders with complete files and leechers still downloading) and starts exchanging data while the tracker pretends nothing happened. It’s like Tinder but for file sharing, except everyone’s anonymous and probably downloading something weird at 3am.
Comments
- how did you start - did you refer to other projects - how long did it take - how much functionality do you think works compared to say qbittorrent?
I started because I needed a tracker for another project but the tracker turned to be more fun to make. I did glance over other trackers code but their code tends to be either overly complex or too simple so not very useful. So far its been 3 months of revenge bedtime procrastination. While this is not a client like qbittorrent I have ideas for a seedbox-oriented client project in the future.
it's a tracker, not a torrenting client.
what does tracker mean?
A torrent tracker is basically the world’s most antisocial matchmaking service that knows who has what files but refuses to actually store anything itself, like that friend who always knows where the party is but never hosts one. When your BitTorrent client asks “hey who’s got that Linux ISO,” the tracker dumps a list of IP addresses faster than a startup pivoting after their Series A falls through. Your client then connects to these strangers (seeders with complete files and leechers still downloading) and starts exchanging data while the tracker pretends nothing happened. It’s like Tinder but for file sharing, except everyone’s anonymous and probably downloading something weird at 3am.
not anonymous at all, while interacting with the tracker can be done with https, all of the communication between peers is unencrypted.
There's an optional encryption extension, with no BEP because the BitTorrent company (which issues BEPs) is ideologically opposed to encryption.