apocryph.org Notes to my future self

Setting up Deluge on a headless Ubuntu seedbox with a Windows client

Recently I had to rebuild aenea, my dedicated seedbox, due to a botched upgrade to Ubuntu Hardy. The install went fine, being as it is Ubuntu, but when I installed the latest version of Azureus, my preferred BitTorrent client for the last five years or so, I ran into trouble. It would download fine, 1.5MB/s, for between one to thirty minutes, then all download and upload traffic would cease. No meaningful errors on the console, and the NAT test showed green consistently, but no traffic.

I poked around on the Azureus support forums and found this guy having the same problem. No one could offer any meaningful suggestions beyond the usual “is it plugged in?” and “is it turned on?” type stuff, so as a diagnostic measure I decided to run a different BitTorrent client. I rummaged around and quickly found Deluge, which is a cross-platform client written in Python.

I did a quick aptitude install deluge, which installed (what I later learned is an ancient) version 0.5.something. I fired it up, configured it for my ports and download location, and pointed it to the same torrents Azureus was choking on. Not surprisingly, Deluge downloaded them fine, with no eventual slowdown. Clearly, not a NAT problem.

Since I already had a working Deluge install, I started to consider dumping Azureus entirely. I’ve hated Azureus since it became Vuze and started bolting all sorts of crap on top of what should be a pretty simple piece of software, but I never had any motivation to switch since Azureus just worked. Now that it didn’t, and I had another client that did, I figured it would be a great opportunity to see if my needs could be met elsewhere.

Once I realized the package I was running was an ancient version, I went to the Deluge site to download the latest (1.0.5 at the time of this writing) in the form of a .deb package. Install was painless, and the new version was much nicer looking. Then, I set about to duplicate my Azureus config.

Download locations

I keep in-progress downloads in /usr/local/p2p/downloading, and completed downloads go in /usr/local/p2p/downloaded. This makes it easier to keep them straight, and avoid accidentally copying over a partially-downloaded torrent.

Blocklist

I used to use the bluetack level1 blocklist, but it’s MIA again so I downloaded a copy of the PeerGuardian P2P blocklist intead. I had to enable Deluge’s BLocklist plugin to enable blocklist functionality, then pointed it at the text file blocklist and it loaded it into memory.

Bandwidth

I let torrents use unlimited download bandwidth, and 400 KiB/s upload. My OpenBSD packet shaping rules take care of preventing bandwidth starvation.

Headless

I don’t initiate downloads from aenea, I do it from my laptop, so it won’t do to have to VNC into aenea and launch the UI. Fortunately, Deluge supports this. Unfortunately, the docs consist of a hard-to-follow thread on the forums. To get the Deluge daemon and the WebUI to run on system startup, I created an init.d script based on a forum thread.

The final script came from this post. The /etc/default/deluge-daemon file looks like:

# Configuration for /etc/init.d/deluge-daemon

# The init.d script will only run if this variable non-empty.
DELUGED_USER="anelson"

# Should we run at startup?
RUN_AT_STARTUP="YES"

and the /etc/init.d/deluge-daemon looks like:

    #!/bin/sh
    ### BEGIN INIT INFO
    # Provides:          deluge-daemon
    # Required-Start:    $local_fs $remote_fs
    # Required-Stop:     $local_fs $remote_fs
    # Should-Start:      $network
    # Should-Stop:       $network
    # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
    # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
    # Short-Description: Daemonized version of deluge and webui.
    # Description:       Starts the deluge daemon with the user specified in
    #                    /etc/default/deluge-daemon.
    ### END INIT INFO

    # Author: Adolfo R. Brandes 

    PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
    DESC="Deluge Daemon"
    NAME1="deluged"
    NAME2="deluge"
    DAEMON1=/usr/bin/deluged
    DAEMON1_ARGS="-d"
    DAEMON2=/usr/bin/deluge
    DAEMON2_ARGS="-u web"
    PIDFILE1=/var/run/$NAME1.pid
    PIDFILE2=/var/run/$NAME2.pid
    PKGNAME=deluge-daemon
    SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$PKGNAME

    # Exit if the package is not installed
    [ -x "$DAEMON1" -a -x "$DAEMON2" ] || exit 0

    # Read configuration variable file if it is present
    [ -r /etc/default/$PKGNAME ] && . /etc/default/$PKGNAME

    # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
    [ -f /etc/default/rcS ] && . /etc/default/rcS

    # Define LSB log_* functions.
    # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is present.
    . /lib/lsb/init-functions

    if [ -z "$RUN_AT_STARTUP" -o "$RUN_AT_STARTUP" != "YES" ]
    then
       log_warning_msg "Not starting $PKGNAME, edit /etc/default/$PKGNAME to start it."
       exit 0
    fi

    if [ -z "$DELUGED_USER" ]
    then
        log_warning_msg "Not starting $PKGNAME, DELUGED_USER not set in /etc/default/$PKGNAME."
        exit 0
    fi

    #
    # Function that starts the daemon/service
    #
    do_start()
    {
       # Return
       #   0 if daemon has been started
       #   1 if daemon was already running
       #   2 if daemon could not be started
       start-stop-daemon --start --background --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE1 --exec $DAEMON1 \
          --chuid $DELUGED_USER --user $DELUGED_USER --test > /dev/null
       RETVAL1="$?"
       start-stop-daemon --start --background --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE2 --exec $DAEMON2 \
          --chuid $DELUGED_USER --user $DELUGED_USER --test > /dev/null
       RETVAL2="$?"
       [ "$RETVAL1" = "0" -a "$RETVAL2" = "0" ] || return 1

       start-stop-daemon --start --background --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE1 --make-pidfile --exec $DAEMON1 \
          --chuid $DELUGED_USER --user $DELUGED_USER -- $DAEMON1_ARGS
       RETVAL1="$?"
            sleep 2
       start-stop-daemon --start --background --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE2 --make-pidfile --exec $DAEMON2 \
          --chuid $DELUGED_USER --user $DELUGED_USER -- $DAEMON2_ARGS
       RETVAL2="$?"
       [ "$RETVAL1" = "0" -a "$RETVAL2" = "0" ] || return 2
    }

    #
    # Function that stops the daemon/service
    #
    do_stop()
    {
       # Return
       #   0 if daemon has been stopped
       #   1 if daemon was already stopped
       #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
       #   other if a failure occurred

       start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --user $DELUGED_USER --pidfile $PIDFILE2
       RETVAL2="$?"
       start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --user $DELUGED_USER --pidfile $PIDFILE1
       RETVAL1="$?"
       [ "$RETVAL1" = "2" -o "$RETVAL2" = "2" ] && return 2

       rm -f $PIDFILE1 $PIDFILE2

       [ "$RETVAL1" = "0" -a "$RETVAL2" = "0" ] && return 0 || return 1
    }

    case "$1" in
      start)
       [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME1"
       do_start
       case "$?" in
          0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
          2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
       esac
       ;;
      stop)
       [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME1"
       do_stop
       case "$?" in
          0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
          2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
       esac
       ;;
      restart|force-reload)
       log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME1"
       do_stop
       case "$?" in
         0|1)
          do_start
          case "$?" in
             0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
             1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
             *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
          esac
          ;;
         *)
            # Failed to stop
          log_end_msg 1
          ;;
       esac
       ;;
      *)
       echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
       exit 3
       ;;
    esac

    :

Obviously you must make /etc/init.d/deluge-daemon executable by root, then make it load on startup:

sudo update-rc.d deluge-daemon defaults

You can either reboot, or do

sudo /etc/init.d/deluge-daemon start

to start things up. Now the daemon should be listening on port 58846, and the Web UI on port 8112 (by default protected by password deluge).

Client

In a pinch I can use the WebUI at http://aenea:8112/, but as rich as the UI is it’s really a pain in the ass to use with private trackers, since I have to download the torrent file from my logged-in browser session, then upload that torrent file to the web UI. Fortunately, Deluge offers another option.

The Deluge GUI is actually just a client, that talks to a daemon. By default it talks to the local daemon, but it can be made to talk to one elsewhere on the network as well. Unfortunately, the docs suck to the point of non-existence, so you have to rummage around the forums or read this post to find out how to do it.

First, I downloaded the 64-bit windows installer, and ran it on my Vista laptop. I then started up Deluge, and (here’s the non-obvious bit) went into Preferences, Interface, unchecked ‘Enable’ under ‘Classic Mode’, and restarted Deluge. When it came back up, it came up with the connection manager dialog. I removed the connection to the localhost daemon, added aenea, and configured it to always connect to this host. That way, whenever I launch Deluge on my laptop, it comes up connected to aenea.

You might think that’s it, but there’s a bit more yet to do.

File associations

My normal torrent workflow is to use Firefox on my Vista laptop to find torrents I want, then download them and let Firefox launch my torrent client automatically. With Deluge this is a bit tricky, because it is launched with a batch file, deluge.cmd, in the Program Files\Deluge folder. This batch file sets up some Python environment variables before invoking the scripts\deluge.exe file. However, if you tell Firefox to launch deluge.cmd, you’ll find that you get a rather obtuse error message popup:

Failed to run the program, Error:267, The directory name is invalid.

This is due to Firefox running as a 32-bit process, and thus thinking the Program Files directory is Program Files (x86). The solution is to create another batch file, which I call deluge32.cmd, with the following contents:

@echo off
rem Wrapper around deluge.cmd which will ensure the 64-bit command processor is used even if this batch file is invoked with the 32-bit
rem command processor
rem
rem Use with 32-bit firefox on 64-bit windows with 64-bit deluge.  Any other use is completely untested
set DELUGEDIR=C:\Program Files\Deluge

%windir%\sysnative\cmd.exe /c "%DELUGEDIR%\deluge.cmd" %*

Point Firefox to this batch file, and it works fine. I posted a bit more about this in the Deluge forums here

VNC

This isn’t really related to torrents at all, but I always configure my seedbox with resumable VNC sessions per this forum post. There’s a built-in desktop sharing thing in Gnome but you have to be logged in already and it shares the console session over VNC; this way VNC sees a separate session from the console, must like RDP on Windows.

Note that this tutorial is a bit old. I can’t get it working with Ubuntu 8.04, and apparently neither can anyone else. There’s a bug with the GNOME Settings Daemon crashing, and performance is shoot-me-in-the-head-I-cant-take-it-anymore slow. Dammit, sometimes I really hate computers.