New article: minimalist setup for a private tracker #143
Description
Relates to: torrust/torrust-tracker#1360 (reply in thread)
I've recently explained here how to use the Torrust Tracker without the Index.
Some users find it hard to setup the Tracker + Index because it requires some infrastructure administration skills.
I've been thinking how we could simplify the setup but it depends on your needs. I came up with this solution for a very specific use case (very simple use case).
Scenario
- You want to share your contents
- You want to share them privately
- There is only one torrent uploader/admin
Solution
If those are your requirements there is a relatively simple way to achieve the same goals.
In the article I will explain the details but the basic idea is:
ADMIN
- Build you "Index" as a list of your torrents with your metadata. For example an Excel file.
- You only need to include in the "index" your metadata and a way to search by metadata.
- You only need to include the infohash (you can optionally also share the torrent file in a zip dir).
- Share that file with your users in your preferred way: email, download from private URL, etc.
- Setup the tracker in a server (this is the hardest part, but it's easier than setting up the Index).
- When you want to grant access to a new user you can generate a new KEY for that users using a console command to make a request to the tracker REST API (a curl command or with other tool).
USER
The user should:
- Search in the file/dir or whatever format the admin decided to use.
- Download the torrent from a service like this https://hash2torrent.com/ if it was not provided by the admin.
- Add the torrent to your bittorrent client.
- Ask the admin for an authentication key.
- Modify the torrent with your bittorrent client. Change the tracker URL to include the KEY provided by the admin.
Notes
- Maybe https://www.shuttle.dev/ could be used to setup the tracker.
This is only useful when you have not many torrents, not many users and they are more or less stable.
cc @da2ce7