The High Seas - a very straightforward bittorrent tracker

The High Seas is an easy to use bittorrent tracker with a very simple web interface. It was created with the aim of making it much easier to start a bittorrent tracker.

Screenshot

Features

• No setup whatsoever, just execute ./thehighseas
• A bittorrent tracker
  • All tracking is "public" (currently)
  • Scrape API supported
  • "Secret" swarms (see below for details)
• A simple web interface
  • Upload torrent files
  • Download torrent files
  • Check the status of swarms

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python (version 2.x), with pip and virtualenv
  • On debian/ubuntu these are the packages:
    • python2.7
    • python-pip
    • python-virtualenv
• Redis
  • On debian/ubuntu this is the package:
    • redis-server

Running

• Execute ./thehighseas
• Visit http://localhost:11235
• Edit the configuration in config.sh before you deploy properly

"Secret" swarms

Most of the time, to start tracking a new swarm, you upload a "metainfo" file (a ".torrent" file) to the tracker. This file contains general information about the files the swarm is sharing, their sizes, their names and checksums for the files. The tracker then hosts this metainfo file so that anyone can join the swarm and start sharing the files.

This is fine for when you want anyone to be able to join a swarm. Sometimes, though, files are private.

In this case, you don't need to upload the metainfo file to THS. Just start sharing - THS will track any swarm that announces to it. You'll need to distribute the metainfo file yourself though.

Contact

Email me with any questions: cal - AT - calpaterson - DOT - com