wTorrent Install Guide

Intro

I'm gonna try to explain this because many people get lost in the install. That's the schema of our system when it's done:

We need to set up a gateway server between wTorrent and rtorrent, that's the purpose of lighttpd or mod_scgi. In this guide I assume that you have a httpd server already set up with php and SQLite support, either lighttpd or apache.

Install xmlrpc-c

Download xmlrpc-c 1.11 from it's website. Once you have the package downloaded follow these instructions:

tar -zxvf xmlrpc-c-1.11.00.tgz
cd xmlrpc-c-1.11.00
./configure --disable-cplusplus
make
make install

Ok, you should have xmlrpc-c properly installed by now, let's follow with rtorrent. 2. Install rtorrent with xmlrpc support We are going to use the svn version, since it's the most updated one and probably the only one that works with wTorrent at the moment (stable and unestable releases have less xmlrpc methods and some parts of the interface might not work). Here's what we need to do:

mkdir rtorrent-svn
cd rtorrent-svn
svn co svn://rakshasa.no/libtorrent/trunk
svn up
cd trunk
cd libtorrent
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
make install
cd ../rtorrent
./autogen.sh
./configure --with-xmlrpc-c
make
make install

If everything went ok you should now have rtorrent with xmlrpc interface properly installed, now let's gonna configure it, edit your .rtorrent.rc and add the following line:

scgi_port = localhost:5000

Install the scgi gateway

Here we are going to set up the gateway between wTorrent and rtorrent, there is more than one way to get this working, but here's what I recommend. If you already have a working apache server I would advise you to set up a lighttpd server in another port (like 81) as the scgi gateway, but you can also do the same with mod_scgi (but it's slower). If you have lighttpd as your httpd server you just need to add a few lines to lighttpd.conf.

Using Lighttpd

Install lighttpd (I'm not going to write down what you need to do since it's a standart install). Make sure you also have installed php, php-xmlrpc, php-sqlite and sqlite. Search for the server.modules section and add/uncoment the following line:

"mod_scgi",

Then add this at the end of your file:

scgi.server = (
 "/RPC2" => # RT_DIR
  ( "127.0.0.1" =>
   (
    "host" => "127.0.0.1", # Ip where rtorrent is listening
    "port" => 5000, # Port specified in .rtorrent.rc
    "check-local" => "disable"
   )
  )
 )

If you want to use auth for accesing the /RPC2 location you should create a htdigest file containing the allowed users with their passwords, copy this to a new file and execute it like ./file-name 'user' 'section name' 'password'

#!/bin/sh
user=$1
realm=$2
pass=$3

hash=`echo -n "$user:$realm:$pass" | md5sum | cut -b -32`

echo "$user:$realm:$hash"

Alternatively you can execute the following your prompt:

user=<YOUR_USERNAME>; pass=<YOUR_PASS>;
echo $user:XML-RPC:`echo -n $user:XML-RPC:$pass | md5sum | cut -b -32` >> YOUR_USERS_FILE
unset user; unset pass;

An example could be:

user=wtorrent; pass=rules;
echo $user:XML-RPC:`echo -n $user:XML-RPC:$pass | md5sum | cut -b -32` >> ~/.wtorrent_users
unset user; unset pass;

Search for the auth module in server.modules section of your lighttpd.conf and uncomment the line to activate it, if not present add it:

"mod_auth",

Then add this to lighttpd.conf:

auth.backend = "htdigest"
auth.backend.htdigest.userfile = "/path/to/htdigest"
auth.require = ( "/RPC2" =>
 (
  "method" => "basic",
  "realm" => "XML-RPC",
  "require" => "valid-user"
 )
)

Your sould also add the this line if you are already running Apache as your web server and want to use Lighttpd as a SCGI server:

server.port = 81 # RT_PORT

Using mod_scgi for apache

Install and enable mod_scgi for apache (if you don't know how to do this refer to your distribution for instructions). Add the following to httpd.conf:

SCGIMount /RPC2 127.0.0.1:5000

For auth with apache you have to create a htpasswd file, which can be done this way:

htpasswd -c /path/to/htpasswd username

After that add the following to httpd.conf

<Location /RPC2>
AuthName "Private"
AuthType Basic
AuthBasicProvider file
AuthUserFile /path/to/htpasswd
Require user myrpcuser
</Location>

In both cases your home.conf.php refering to rtorrent connection would look like:

define('RT_HOST','localhost');
define('RT_PORT',80); //Or 81 if using lighttpd.conf server.port option
define('RT_DIR','RPC2/');
define('RT_AUTH', true); // Set to false if you have not set up auth
define('RT_USER', 'user_name');
define('RT_PASSWD', 'password');

Install wTorrent

Download the release from the section below and extract it:

tar -zxvf wtorrent-alpha*.tar.gz

Enter the directory and copy the folder 'wtorrent' to your httpd server root folder, or wherever you want that your webserver is able to access.

Edit conf/sample.user.conf.php to suit your needs (options are explained) and rename it to home.conf.php. Don't forget to change your username and pass if you activated it for the webserver.

If you downloaded revision 47 (or later) you can point to install2.php to create the conf/home.conf.php with the common configuration filling a form (install2.php is NOT working now, you will have to edit user.conf.php by hand).

Make your torrents, database and smarty compile dirs (default torrents/, db/ and tpl_c/) writable by your web server user. You can do this with a chmod 777 or with chown.

chmod -R 777 wtorrent

Point your web browser to the url of the install.php file and follow instructions (very simple).

Delete install.php after proper installation. And if you are using lighttpd as your web server you should add the following line to your .conf file to prevent visitors from downloading your database:

url.access-deny = ("~", ".inc", ".db", ".tpl.php", ".cls.php",)

Your done, wTorrent should be succesfully installed by now. In case you want to reinstall delete/move your database (default is db/database.db) and point your web browser to the url of the install.php file again.