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torrentfile Manual#

Synopsis#

torrentfile is a command line utility for working with Bittorrent files(.torrent). Some of the tools available include creating torrent files, editing portions of a torrent files, checking the integrity or completeness of downloaded torrent contents, displaying details of a torrentfile, generating magnet URLs for torrentfiles, and individual or batch rebuilding of torrent contents into their original directory structure.

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torrentfile [options]`<subcommand>` [options] `<args>`

  • -h

  • displays all relevant command line options and subcommands.

  • -V

  • displays program and version.

  • -v

  • enables debug mode and outputs a large amount of information to the terminal.

Sub-commands#

create#

alias: c

The create subcommand is used for generating new torrent files. The only required argument is the path(<path>) to the contents file or directory.

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torrentfile create [options]`<path>`
torrentfile c [options] `<path>`

  • -a --announce

  • Adds the list of url’s that follow to the list of trackers for the newly created torrent file.

  • Example -t http://url1 https://url2 ...

  • -p --private

  • Indicates that the torrent will be used on a private tracker. Disables multi-tracker protocols and DHT.

  • --web-seed

  • Adds the list of urls that follow to the list of web-seed addresses for the newly created torrent file.

  • --http-seed

  • Same as the -web-seed argument except using Hoffman style web-seeds.

  • -c --comment

  • Includes the comment that follows to the metadata saved in the newly created torrent file.

  • Example: --comment "Created for MyTrackerExample.com"

  • --source

  • Creates a source field in the info dictionary with the string that follows as the value. Frequently used for cross-seeding on private trackers.

  • Example: --source MyTrackerExample

  • --piece-length

  • Uses the number that follows as the piece-length size for the newly created torrent file. If option isn’t used the program will pick the ideal size. Acceptable values include 14-29 which is interpreted as the number to raise 2 by (e.g. 14 is interpreted as 16384), or any perfect power of 2 greater than or equal to 16 KiB and less than 1 GiB.

  • Example: --piece-length 14 or --piece-length 16384.

  • --meta-version

  • Use the following number as the Bittorrent version the torrent will be used on. The default is 1.

  • Options: 1 - Bittorrent v1, 2 - Bittorrent v2, 3 - Bittorrent v1 & v2

  • Examples: --meta-version 2, --meta-version 3

  • -o --out

  • Specify the full path to the newly created torrent file. The default is to save it adjacent to the content.

  • Example: if content is at /home/user/torrents/content the default would create /home/user/torrents/content.torrent

  • --progress --prog

  • Options (0, 1): No status bar will be shown if 0. Otherwise the default and “1” means progress bar is shown

  • --config

  • Load options from a configuration file. default torrentfile.ini

  • file can use the same long options names used for the command line

  • The current available options that can be marked in the config file include: announce, source, comment, http-seeds, web-seeds, piece-length, ``

  • Default search paths and priority:

    1. ./torrentfile.ini
    2. ~/.torrentfile/torrentfile.ini
    3. ~/.config/torrentfile.ini

  • --config-path

  • Use in combination with --config to specify path to the configuration file.

  • Example: torrentfile create --config --config-path ./dir/config.ini <content-path>

Example Configuration File

torrentfile.ini 

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[config]
private = false
comment = example torrent comment
announce =
    https://tracker1.net/announce
    https://example.org/2324announce
http-seed = 
    https://example.url/path/to/content
web-seed =
    ftp://ftp.example.site/content
meta-version = 2
piece-length = 18
out = /path/to/file/content.torrent

info#

alias: i

Display detailed information about a torrentfile such as trackers, size of contents, Bittorrent version, any comments left, date the torrent file was created and more. There is only one positional perameter which is the path to the torrent file and there are no optional arguments.

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torrentfile info`<path>`
torrentfile i `<path>`
  • /path/to/*.torrent
  • The relative or absolute path to the torrent file.

edit#

Edit some of the different information detailed in a torrent file. The fields that are editable each have option flags detialed below. Each option identifies the field to edit inside the torrent file and what the new value should be. If an option is not used then its field will be ommited in the newly created torrent file. As such if the file is marked as private and it should remain that way, the -p option should be used.

alias: e

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torrentfile edit [options]`<path>`
torrentfile e [options] `<path>`

  • -a -t --announce --tracker

  • Adds the list of url’s that follow to the list of trackers for the newly created torrent file.

  • Example -t http://url1 https://url2 ...

  • -w --web-seeds

  • Adds the list of urls that follow to the list of web-seed addresses for the newly created torrent file.

  • --comment

  • Includes the comment that follows to the metadata saved in the newly created torrent file.

  • Example: --comment "Created for MyTrackerExample.com"

  • --source

  • Creates a source field in the info dictionary with the string that follows as the value. Frequently used for cross-seeding on private trackers.

  • Example: --source MyTrackerExample

  • -p --private

  • Indicates that the torrent will be used on a private tracker. Disables multi-tracker protocols and DHT.

recheck#

This feature is identical to the ‘recheck’ function provided by torrent clients. It validates that the file/directory contents match those described in the torrent file.

Recheck requires two paths as arguments. The first is the path to a torrent file, and and the second is a path to the file of directory containing the downloaded data from that torrentfile. torrentfile recursively validates each file with the hashes contained in the torrentfile, and displays the total percentage of the file that matches the information from the torrent file. It is also permitted to use the contents parent directory which can help for batch processing many torrent files.

alias: r, check

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torrentfile recheck <*.torrent> `<contents>`
torrentfile r <*.torrent> `<contents>`

Magnet#

Generate a magnet URL for a torrent file.

alias: m

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torrentfile magnet <path/to/*.torrent>

Rebuild#

Rebuild individual or batches of torrent contents into the original file structure. The program takes a path to a torrent file or directory containing torrent files, the directory containing the torrent contents, and the destination directory to where the rebuilt torrent content wil be located. The program will recursively traverse the content directory searching for file’s that match one of the meta files and creates copies of the matches to the destination directory. The original files are not effected and any existing files in the target directory will not be overwritten.

alias: build, b

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torrentfile rebuild -m`<metafiles>` -c `<contents>` -d `<destination>`

  • -m --metafiles

  • path to a torrent file or a directory containing torrent files for batch processing.

  • -c --content

  • path to where the contents for the torrentfile can be found. If the path is for a directory, the directory will be searched recusively for files that match. For deeply nested directories with lot’s of files in them, this can take time.

  • -d -destination

  • path to a directory where the torrent will be rebuilt. Files will be copied from their original location, not moved.