Snag the Red Hat 9 ISOs, via Cash or BitTorrent 655
Tectonic Rumblings
Every so often a new tool comes along that causes a shift from Bronze to Iron, that divides history into "before" and "after." The peer-to-peer world has certainly seen its share. Those who used 486s to encode and play MP3s remember it wasn't just abysmal modem speeds that kept people from casual trading, but the tiresome process of finding users and content; Napster freed us from that bondage, letting the computer do the heavy lifting and freeing people to do what they do best.
When the weaknesses began to show in Napster's overly centralized model, Gnutella stepped in with a distributed, decentralized network. Audiogalaxy gave us astounding variety (even the most obscure music could always be found sooner or later) and a rich sense of community that is still sorely missed. WinMX offered the ability to connect to multiple Napster-compatible networks; with the advent of multi-source downloading, Morpheus and similar programs allowed us to rise above the limitations of slow upstream (until it's hard now to find any P2P applications that don't use it); and EDonkey added the nice touch of being able to share files before they were done downloading.
So what's the next stage of P2P evolution?
Enter BitTorrent -- a "swarming, scatter and gather" file transfer protocol developed by Bram Cohen that's taking the net by storm. Even without a friendly, unified interface, BT's ability to scale in the face of overwhelming demand while minimizing the free rider problem ("leeching") has attracted a flood of new users. But as with any tool, understanding how and why it works will always make using it easier and more fun.
All technical references are taken from the BT server tutorial and the official documentation.
Let's Start with the Basics
BitTorrent is not a 'website' or a 'network', and strictly speaking is not even a program -- it's a protocol with a number of functional implementations.
Instead of jumping right into downloading, first we'll discuss how files are served. Most new BT users are familiar with going to a website and clicking on links to .torrent files, but this just provides a friendlier interface and isn't actually necessary. All you really need to serve is a public Internet machine. The "tracker" will "keep track" of who is connected and who has which pieces of the file(s) in question. Like any public Internet service, a static IP address and/or valid hostname will make it easier for people to connect to your tracker.
To start serving, you choose a file or directory to serve and run a program which generates a .torrent file. This contains a 'hash,' which serves as a checksum to ensure the file is the same on all systems, as well as the address of a tracker. A typical .torrent file is quite small, typically 5-50k in size.
The second step is to load the .torrent file into a BT client. The client asks you where to save the file, you point it at the existing and complete copy, it verifies that the file hash matches, says the download is done and sits there uploading when necessary until you cancel it.
Here's an animated graphic (.mng, currently viewable only in Mozilla) of a torrent transfer.
Getting Started
The official BT client is available for Win32, Mac OS X, as an unstable Debian package, and as Python source code.
Getting started is quite simple; the Windows installer asks no questions and provides no options, and the only behind-the-scenes addition is that Internet Explorer now launches BT when you click on links to .torrent files. (Mozilla users will need to edit Preferences, Navigator, Helper Applications and add the mime type "application/x-bittorrent", to be launched by the btdownloadprefetched executable.) You can also download .torrent files and load them locally without going through a website.
Once the .torrent has been invoked, the client will prompt you for a location to save the file to. The client then creates a file of the appropriate size containing all zeros, and connects to the tracker to get a starting list of some random subset of available peers (other users connected to the 'swarm'). BT then starts connecting to peers and downloading random chunks of the file, and begin uploading to other peers as soon as you have enough for it to bother.
Every time your client verifies another piece of the download, it tells the tracker it has a good copy of that piece. By directly utilizing each user's outgoing bandwidth, downloads can be generally be completed very quickly while minimizing the load on the original server, in effect turning the dreaded "Slashdot Effect" against itself -- the more who want to download, the more there are to upload. Sooner or later (usually sooner), the download is done, and the client continues to upload pieces to other users.
What's In It For Me?
Now your first instinct at this point might be to close the program, but you really ought to leave it open as long as possible afterward, to help seed the file into the network. But this is really a social and cultural issue which can't necessarily be addressed through technical measures; BT can enforce fairness during the transfer with its algorithms, but no software can force the user to keep the client open. Many tracker owners keep a close eye on such things, and will generally ban repeat offenders. In any event, "giving back" your bandwidth has never been easier, even for users behind firewalls or NAT (although as always, being able to avoid or go through these will make the transfers more efficient).
Alternative Clients and Other Tools
That said, there are perfectly valid reasons to want some control over the amount of bandwidth a P2P application uses, and an experimental, unofficial client (Win32, Python source) has been created to provide a friendly interface for this. BT will automatically adjust your download speed appropriately if you set a slower upload speed, but it's still an invaluable tool for some cable and DSL users whose downloads will choke and abort if they use too much upstream, or for anyone with limited upstream who wants to reserve some of it for other uses.
Currently, both the official and experimental GUI clients use a separate window for each transfer. BT++ (Win32, Python source) has made an initial attempt at combining all transfers into one window, as well as offering some other enhancements, but users report mixed results, with some saying "it works for me" and others that it's buggy to the point of unusable; still, it's one to keep an eye on. (Caveat: BT++ provides an option to automatically stop uploading when the download is completed. I believe this deliberately encourages people to do so even if there is no real need to do so, and would advise anyone using BT++ to refrain from using this option; it's unnecessary, detrimental to the BT networks, and may lead to your IP being banned as described above.)
TorrentSpy (Win32) is another useful tool that shows various statistics about your transfers, including which files of a multi-file torrent are complete. It's not meant to replace a downloading client, but to complement it.
I should add that the speed and time-to-completion numbers may not be wholly accurate, and will typically fluctuate wildly to some extent during a transfer. (After all, do you believe Windows when it tells you how long it will take to copy a file?) The "percentage completed" at least is accurate, and you may be able to get more accurate information using TorrentSpy. A new version of BT has just been released (3.2) and its reported changes include "more even and consistent download rates".
A Few Miscellaneous Points
It's quite possible to generate .torrents for files you want to serve and then advertise them on someone else's tracker. Since anyone can run a tracker, BT is more like IRC, Usenet or Direct Connect than something like Kazaa. Like Freenet, it works best if the content is highly in demand; it's also more effective on recently released stuff. One highly recommeded website is Bstark. It doesn't provide .torrents for anyone to download, but functions as a "metatracker", that is, a tracker that keeps track of trackers. If you're a statistics geek, the graphs are a lot of fun, and even for the average user it's a simple way to check what files are most in demand and most in need of someone to serve them. This is even more effective when you combine it with an alternate means of communication such as IRC or email, making it easy for users to check supply and meet demand. The .torrent file can also be distributed by any means, be it a website, IRC channel, email attachments or perhaps carrier pigeon.
Conclusion
With the 'entertainment industry' finally focusing their attention on IRC, the cantankerous and difficult granddaddy of Internet file sharing, BitTorrent has found a niche and filled it admirably. The author understandably wishes to focus upon using BT in a legal manner. As with any new invention, "the street finds its own use for technology," and BitTorrent will undoubtedly continue to be rapidly adopted for both licit and illicit use.
Given the decentralized nature of BT networks and the rapid development of new tools, it's only a matter of time before someone writes a GUI wrapper for an IRC client, web browser and all-in-one BitTorrent interface. After all, Napster did it, as do most other mainstream P2P apps like Kazaa. Like Direct Connect with its 'hubs,' there will always be multiple BT servers available, and a unified interface would not only make it easier for users to find and download content, but free them to focus on forming the social and cultural networks that are also needed. A website typically uses far too much CPU and bandwidth to handle popular traffic, but a BT tracker uses minimal bandwidth by itself. Perhaps the next-generation clients will try to automatically locate trackers, or help the user find and serve older content as well as new releases.
The late great Audiogalaxy had many strengths, but one of its most fundamental was the sense of community it encouraged. BitTorrent wisely fills a narrow set of technical requirements, leaving a great deal to human need and will. The ad hoc arrangements and customs that have so far sprouted as expressions of the will to fill these needs are often chaotic and messy -- but that's human action for you.
Direct Connect (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget to forward 6881 (Score:3, Informative)
Bandwidth saturation? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BitTorrent not working well (Score:2, Informative)
BitTorrent IS WORKING WELL!! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:i used BT once... (Score:4, Informative)
Make sure not to close the Bittorrent client... (Score:5, Informative)
Bittorent works by making everyone who downloads part of the "distribution network." By leaving the client open you are making the download go faster for everyone. I suppose this is kind of a utilitatian concept, but hey.. Slashdot readers are supposed to be idealistic, right? I'll leave mine open, and hopefully you will too.
Animation works fine in Konqueror. (Score:4, Informative)
quote: "Here's an animated graphic (.mng, currently viewable only in Mozilla) of a torrent transfer."
Just to point out, the .mng works just find under Konqueror 3.1.0.
For more information on MNG, and a list of supported browsers, follow this link [libpng.org]
Re:YES! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:New /. headline (Score:5, Informative)
If you're having problems getting BitTorrent to work, especially "bad data from tracker", use:
http://207.44.142.96/redhat9.torrent [207.44.142.96]
Re:Great article (Score:1, Informative)
(until i learned that i was always saying "oliloquy" :)
Actually an animated gif (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Direct Connect (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Download capped to around upload speed? (Score:3, Informative)
So the short answer is that you'll generally get better download rates if you upload more, because peers will upload to you in exchange, but your actual download rate is affected how the particular deployment is going.
Slow RHN speeds (Score:2, Informative)
Re:YES! (Score:3, Informative)
Last I heard, the redhat cds contained proprietary software. They do contain plenty of GPL'd stuff, but redhat adds a bunch of non-GPL'd things in. If I remember right, they leave the non-gpl stuff off the first cd, so the first cd would be perfectly fine and happy to distribute on bittorrent. However, if any of the iso's contain NON-GPL'd NON-BSD-licensed software, they no longer can be distributed as if there's a huge THIS IS ALL GPL sticker on it.
You could theoretically create new .iso's which do not contain the extra copyrighted non-gpl packages, but i highly doubt that that's what isos you're looking at on bittorrent.
Re:Don't forget to forward 6881 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:YES! (Score:2, Informative)
edit:
## Adding BitTorrent
application/x-bittorrent;
edit:
application/x-bittorrent torrent
It's as simple as that. Any site that
Bittorrent does not work
Re:Security (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ridiculous (Score:2, Informative)
Re:YES! (Score:5, Informative)
That's not true, and has never been true. Here is a portion of the EULA from Disc 3 of RH 8.0:
In short, there is nothing in the personal, downloadable editions of the Red Hat distribution that is not GPLed, open sourced or otherwise not free to redistribute.Re:MD5SUMs (Score:3, Informative)
6b8ba42f56b397d536826c78c9
af38ac4316ba20df2dec5f9909
cut/paste directly from the md5 that dt downloaded for me
Caveat Downloader! (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, you should check MD5 checksums, or better yet, GPG signatures, if you're going to download a .iso from a P2P network instead of getting it from an official mirror site.
You should check them anyway, even when you get them from an official mirror, IMHO.
"Funny"? (Score:3, Informative)
As of this post, there are >1300 people downloading, and things seem to be scaling fine. The tracker ought to be able to handle at least 6000 clients.
Redhat did bundle commercial software previously (Score:3, Informative)
>That's not true, and has never been true.
Yes they did. For example, Redhat 4.x shipped with a commercial X server, Metro X and BRU backup tool. They also had a distribution which included Motif development libraries, as well as a secondary product line which included just the runtime libs as well as the runtime and development libs. Redhat 5.x continued shipping Metro X, but not BRU if I remember correctly. This policy was primarily a response to Caldera's bundling commercial software with the original Candera Network Desktop and Caldera OpenLinux productline. Not that Redhat Linux does bundle commercial software with the product - I haven't seen it so I can't comment on that. However, Redhat most certainly did bundle commercial applications with their product line at one point in time. --M
Re:YES! (Score:2, Informative)
Red Hat's logo and bluecurve theme are protected under trademark law and their use is mentioned on Red Hat's site [redhat.com]. But distributing them is okay under fair use so long as the distro isn't modified from the original (in which case you'd have to call it something other than "Red Hat").
I can see the headlines now (Score:3, Informative)
Thousands hacked after a trojan copy of Red Hat was placed on a bitTorrent site.
Make sure you check the MD5, people!
There is an MD5 available somewhere, isn't there?
Re:Help with BT install (Score:2, Informative)
If you don't want to hassle with installing wxPython, do what I did and run the headless client. After unpacking the BitTorrent distro:
Just cut and paste the torrent url into your terminal window.
Worked like a charm.