[LIVE] HOW-TO get BitTorrent download/management via WebUI Guide working on XBMC Live

Some background – Moving on from an XBOX I purchased an Asrock ION 330 which I wanted to use for XBMC and torrent downloading but didn’t want to lose that set-top-box feel. Being a Linux neophyte the easiest way to do this was of course a full Ubuntu install with torrent application and XBMC auto loading on start-up. Although this worked reasonably well it didn’t quite have the same feel as my XBOX and so I decided to try XBMC Live – this was exactly what I was looking for but lacked the torrent downloading.

My ideal solution would therefore be XBMC Live + Torrent downloading managed via web user interface. After fishing around in the forums I see a few people have had the same idea and various suggestions on how to do it but no clear cut instructions. So after some reading and playing around I managed to get XBMC Live + Transmission working exactly how I wanted. XBMC Live boots quickly with Transmission loading in the background and I can use a web browser anywhere to manage my torrent files.

Just in case anyone else might find it useful I’ve put together a simple guide below.
At time of writing I have tested this using XBMC Live 9.11 Alpha1 and Alpha2

Objective: Install XBMC Live + Transmission torrent application to be managed via WebUI

Install XBMC Live onto your hard drive [I don’t think this part needs any explanation]

Create a directory where you want all of your downloads to go - I used sftp with filezilla to create:
/home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads

Press Ctrl + Alt + F2 [This exits XBMC Live into console]

XBMCLive login: xbmc
Password: [Your_XBMC_Password]

Install transmission using the following command

sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon

Now stop the transmission-daemon using the command

sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop

Now edit the settings.json file as follows

sudo nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

Change "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1", to "rpc-whitelist": "*.*.*.*",

Change the username and password for WebUI connection on the following lines to whatever you want

"rpc-password": "password",
"rpc-username": "username",

Now you need to change the download directory to what you created before so edit:

“download-dir”: “\/var\/lib\/transmission-daemon\/downloads”,
to
“download-dir”: “\/home\/xbmc\/Videos\/Downloads”,

Save the file and exit by pressing
CRTL + X and then Y

Now restart transmission using

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

Due to changing the download directory we need to change some access permissions so enter the following commands

sudo chmod g+rw /home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads
sudo chgrp -R debian-transmission /home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads

That is pretty much it.

Press Ctrl + Alt + F7 [This returns you from console to XBMC Live]

Finally access your router and make sure that the ports 9091 and 51413 are forwarded to your XBMC Live machine running Transmission.

Just for good measure re-start your XBMC Live system

You should now be able to use any computer inside your network to access Transmission WebUI with the URL:
http://your-xbmclive-system-IP:9091

Or from outside of your network you can use:
http://your-external-ip-address:9091

I hope someone will find this useful.

Very good! People have been asking for a guide like this.

Maybe I will test next time I install. For the moment I have added gnome-core and use NX server to get a remote session where I run deluge torrent client.

Your way is of course lighter. On the other hand I get no performance problem with my setup.

Very good guide.

I use torrentflux-b4rt GUI. Along with your favorite torrent manager, is a dream to the proficient downloader.

You can check a small how-to here: h**p://samiux.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/howto-home-made-nas-with-ubuntu-8041-%E2%80%93-part-iv-a/

It integrates a very newbie friendly file browser that you can use to rename/unrar/unzip/stream/organize/etc your collection, along with advanced options for the not so newbie user.

Check it out and you won't be disappointed.

Yea I use transmission like you did plus flexget for auto download my tvshows.

Edit: One more thing, If you not like or unsatisfying transmission webui you can use p2p-gui for controlling transmission.

I have Ubuntu standard install and XBMC which autostarts using the autologin/session method.

Would this be the best way for me to go about enabling torrent downloads without having to exit XBMC from autostart and changing the session each time?

Looks good to me, I was looking at TorrentFlux and a chosen torrent app but wasn't sure how to go about this nor was I sure I could do this without gnome?

I'm a complete linux noob...

queeup Wrote:Yea I use transmission like you did plus flexget for auto download my tvshows.

Edit: One more thing, If you not like or unsatisfying transmission webui you can use p2p-gui for controlling transmission.

Awesome!
I used to use transmission remote dotnet but its recently got a bug and is unusable for me. Others don't work over HTTPS but this works great!

Did what you said above but I had the common problem with transmission-daemon overwriting my conf on start for some reason. So I ended up setting my transmission-cli conf and then replacing the daemon conf with that one.

Managed to do timed limits and a torrent watch folder etc.

Then I set up a firewall (shorewall) and set the rules for bittorrent, transmissions ports, xbmcs ports, ftp ports, smb ports and installed apache2 so I can design a front end which allows me to quickly access the various web gui's from one page.

The Guv. Wrote:I have Ubuntu standard install and XBMC which autostarts using the autologin/session method.

Would this be the best way for me to go about enabling torrent downloads without having to exit XBMC from autostart and changing the session each time?

Looks good to me, I was looking at TorrentFlux and a chosen torrent app but wasn't sure how to go about this nor was I sure I could do this without gnome?

I'm a complete linux noob...

When I was running the full Ubuntu install + XBMC I toyed with the autologin/session method but found I needed to jump back to Ubuntu every so often. Also some Ubuntu updates messed with my display driver which meant I had to reinstall it... with Live I don't have to worry about that.

Going from your 2nd post it sounds like you have everything working after some fun and games. I hope it works the way you wanted.

Why not use rtorrent + wtorrent

Use this script to install

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1064377

Works like a charm.

Peer Exchange, Encryption...
Transmission has a large feature list, rtorrent on the other hand is minimal.

Its feature list is only 2nd to Vuze IMO but that has no daemon and is very bloated.

Edit: rtorrent only recently introduced the above features.