How to build a torrent box with Orange Pi Zero

We have used torrent for various purposes and mostly we had used the personal computers to do so. I thought that when we can automate things with Orange Pi, I can do tasks independent of a PC.

Torrent is file distribution system using which a file is downloaded part by part from different servers and assembled in to one at the client side. This is a popularly used method to share files across networks. There are many advantages for this method like its not centralised, so there is no single server which takes all the load and slows it down.

There are seeders and leechers. The seeders are the ones who deliver the files to the request and the leechers are the ones who download the files part by part. The leechers will eventually become seeders by seeding the parts of the file which they already downloaded from the seeders. The disadvantage of this method is that you need to keep your PC always on and running and this is a lot of power. We can change this by using an Orange Pi Zero as a torrent box. For that you need.

Hardware:

https://www.banggood.com/Orange-Pi-Zero-H2-Quad-Core-Open-source-512MB-Development-Board-p-1110210.html?p=W214159476515201703B

 

Setup:

If you are new to orange Pi then you need to setup Orange pi rootfs, flash the image. I am using Armbian image.

apt-get install transmission-daemon

Now after installing the transmission daemon stop it before editing the configuration.

/etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop
or 
systemctl stop transmission-daemon.service

Now change the following lines as follows

 "rpc-authentication-required": true,
to 
 "rpc-authentication-required": false,
#This will disable to login authentication
 "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1",
to 
 "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,192.168.2.*",
Here the I have used the IP address range of my network, use your  IP network range here.
This will allow only device in the subnet.

Now start the trasmission daemon

 
/etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start 
or 
systemctl start transmission-daemon.service 

Now in your PC or Smartphone browser type the IP address of the Orange Pi with 9091 port.

192.168.2.100:9091

You can change the port no from 9091 to something else in the configuration. You can see below I am downloading different versions of Debian ISO.