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I want to deploy it on my VPS server to download resources quickly.

This could save me a lot of time since some resources are in a foreign country,

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  • 1
    What do you mean by "some resource are in foreign country, so use this could reduce my time."?
    – N.N.
    Oct 12, 2011 at 9:12
  • 2
    @N.N., he probably means that his remote server has access to more resources (bandwidth, probably) so he can download faster.
    – Oxwivi
    Oct 13, 2011 at 10:55
  • 5
    Possible duplicate of Torrent client for the command-line?
    – Deltik
    Oct 16, 2015 at 14:27

12 Answers 12

Reset to default
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Transmission

The default BitTorrent client of Ubuntu Desktop, Transmission, has a command line interface (which is not installed by default, the package is transmission-daemon). The daemon can be setup so that it may be interacted with through the terminal and through a web interface.

Transmission is a good bittorrent client because:

  • It's lightweight with either interface.
  • It's stable, never had it crashing.
  • It's easy to understand.
  • It has function expected of a modern bittorrent client, e.g. local peer discovery, full encryption, and support for DHT, µTP, PEX and magnet links.

For more info on its features, see this page.

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  • 11
    Do mention that you'd need to install transmission-cli before you can use it in Terminal. The regular transmission-gtk package does not include the CLI. Not to mention there is transmission-daemon package as well.
    – Oxwivi
    Oct 13, 2011 at 10:54
  • @Oxwivi the transmission-cli is auto downloaded in Ubuntu 15.04 if the transmission-daemon is installed as described above.
    – Thomas K
    Aug 18, 2015 at 18:45
  • transmission-cli seems to work on its own.
    – pim
    Mar 16, 2021 at 15:06
  • Note transmission-cli command is deprecated and now the command transmission-remote is encouraged.
    – bryant1410
    Jul 13, 2021 at 18:24
  • sudo apt install transmission-cli works fine for me
    – Denis
    May 9, 2023 at 19:20
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rTorrentsoftware-center image

rTorrent screenshot

I have written a detailed tutorial about rTorrent, including its installation and configuration. Check it out here or see the official user guide.

rTorrent's pros

  • lightweight
  • ultra-fast downloading speed
  • very effective BitTorrent traffic encryption
  • supported by all the private trackers
  • very customizable

rTorrent's cons

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  • 1
    Note that rtorrent 0.9.7+ can run as a daemon without screen or tmux
    – jameh
    Apr 22, 2018 at 23:32
31

aria2c install aria2c

A CLI downloader supporting HTTP, FTP, and Torrents.

To download a torrent:

aria2c file.torrent

You can also point it to a remote torrent file http://some web site here.com/file.torrent so you don't need to download the torrent file first.

Also note you can disable file allocation with this flag: --file-allocation=none.

Aria2c also supports parallel downloading on HTTP. Use the -j flag to determine how many threads. For 3 concurrent downloads of a single HTTP file see the following example:

aria2c -j 3 website.com/file.rar

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  • 2
    I tried most of the solutions here and this was the only one that worked with the format of torrent file I had
    – hoju
    Nov 28, 2014 at 11:36
29

Deluge deluge install

Deluge is a fully featured, yet lightweight torrent client that is written in Python and utilises libtorrent(rasterbar) C++ library at its core.

  • Standalone or Thinclient mode (split core/ui) to enable connecting to daemon (deluged) running remotely or in the background.

  • Multiple user-interfaces, supports access from most platforms:

    • GTK UI


    • Web UI

    • Console UI

  • Many Plugins and application extensions

  • Supports all the usual bittorrent client functions: DHT, LPD, PEX, UPNP, Encryption, Proxy, etc.
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  • 4
    The best bit about deluge is you can run the background process on the remote server and the GTK interface on your local machine.
    – caveman_dick
    Oct 12, 2011 at 9:47
  • @caveman_dick: yeah, good point; although I went to the web interface for that - every computer has a browser installed (as opposed to Deluge clients - I don't think there's one for smartphones), and the UI is very similar to the GTK version.
    – Piskvor left the building
    Oct 12, 2011 at 10:06
  • @Piskvor Can you please add additional details? Outlining what features set Deluge apart, reasons you like/use it, screenshots of it in action, additional resources, etc?
    – Marco Ceppi
    Oct 12, 2011 at 18:44
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    @caveman_dick Because just saying go to this website doesn't really help with the quality of the site :)
    – Marco Ceppi
    Oct 13, 2011 at 13:32
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    @Piskvor Precisely why we shouldn't link to other sites except when needed. If we (ask ubuntu) have the information, then we don't have linkrot.
    – jrg
    Oct 14, 2011 at 12:56
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Azureus install azureus

Azureus/Vuse also has a console mode. [disclaimer] I was one of the developers.

To use azureus in console mode, you will need to download a couple of additional libraries from http://svn.vuze.com/public/client/trunk/uis/lib/

  • commons-cli.jar
  • log4j.jar

If you place these in same the directory as the Vuze jar, you can launch the console ui by running:

java -jar Vuze-xxxx.jar --ui=console

Inside the CLI, type help to view the commands. A couple of useful commands are:

  • show torrents
  • add [url]
  • start [x]
  • stop [x]
  • remove [x]

Here is example output from a 'show torrents' command

show torrents
> -----
 1 [>] 025.6%   Azureus4.7.0.0.jar (13.26 MB) ETA: 1m 41s
                Speed: 295.1 kB/s / 0 B/s       Amount: 3.56 MB / 0 B   Connections: 11(20) / 0(4)

Total Speed (down/up): 296.6 kB/s / 2.2 kB/s
Transferred Volume (down/up/discarded): 3.56 MB / 0 B / 0 B
Total Connected Peers (seeds/peers): 11 / 0
> -----

Take a look at http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Console_UI for more information :-)

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  • thanks for the suggestion Marco. i've done just that. I couldnt include the link to the apt package because I dont have enough rep at the moment.
    – Fatal
    Oct 14, 2011 at 3:17
  • Thanks for the update, looks great! I've added the link for you :)
    – Marco Ceppi
    Oct 14, 2011 at 12:14
8

I use it all the time :

sudo apt-get install bittornado

To download torrents :

btdownloadcurses --max_uploads 4 --max_upload_rate 32 to_be_downloaded.torrent
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  • 3
    This is the simplest to use.
    – Iván Pérez
    Sep 2, 2015 at 18:22
8

ctorrent install ctorrent

There is a similar question on stackoverflow.com.

The accepted answer there is CTorrent so I thought I should mention it here. The description of ctorrent from packages.debian.org is as follows:

This application is written in the C++ language and doesn't require any graphical component, such as an X server. Original ctorrent's upstream has stopped its development and now it's kept updated with new releases/bug fixes by a new developer. It's built as a console program and it can be even used remotely in a machine that provides outside ssh access.

For more info you can visit following sites:
http://packages.debian.org/sid/ctorrent
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ctorrent/

there is also an enhanced version of ctorrent which can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/dtorrent/

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4

Try utorrent linux alpha version. Its a headless server which can be controlled from your browser (web UI). http://www.utorrent.com/downloads/linux.

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4

I use tget which is (in the author's words) "wget for torrents". It allows you do download using torrent files or magnet links. It is a node.js application.

tget 'magnet:?xt=urn:btih:0403fb4728bd788fbcb67e87d6feb241ef38c75a'

To install:

npm install -g t-get
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2

I know it's an old question, but nobody mentioned peerflix.

Written in JavaScript, works great, super simple to use, has a nice, informative and colored interface.

Most importantly, it supports streaming of video and audio content through VLC (just launch it with the flag --vlc).

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My recommendation without installing anything (if you have node)

npx -p webtorrent-cli webtorrent download "magent:..."

It's will temporary download the webtorrent-cli pakcage, then execute the webtorretn commmand to download your torrent.

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0

You can use torrent-dl

It was originally based off of tget, a tool mentioned in this answer, but the project has since significantly diverted from it. tget does not offer any configurability (e.g. searching popular torrent sites, customizing what port to use, downloading multiple torrents, etc) so torrent-dl adds all of these features.

Example usage (with some of the extra options):

torrent-dl -i magnet:?xt=urn:btih:b26c81363ac1a236765385a702aec107a49581b5 --port 43022 --connections 250 --uploadslots 25

You can see all the options it offers on it's Github page linked at the top. It is a nodejs application, however you can download standalone binaries (MacOS and Windows binaries are also available) from the releases page on it's Github, meaning no nodejs or npm installation is required.

It can also be installed via npm, however:

npm install -g torrent-dl

I am the author of this project.

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