Official Documentation...

[ Table of Contents ]

The External Torrent Directory (ETD)

Let me start off by saying that the majority of trackers do not need to use the External Torrent Directory (or ETD) feature. You can safely leave this feature disabled and its configuration value empty.

bnbt_external_torrent_dir =

If you are running or have access to a separate web server, you have the option to not use BNBT's native torrent file downloader. If this feature is enabled, torrent files with be downloaded from an external source when users click a download link in your torrent table.

This feature is typically only useful if you have concerns with the amount of bandwidth your tracker is using for the downloading of torrent files.

You could also conceivably and alternatively disable torrent downloads altogether and require that your users post their torrents to an external location for others to download, such as a community forum (i.e. Filesoup.com) or a torrent listing service (i.e. SuprNova.org). If you still required torrents to be uploaded to your tracker first (which is the default configuration), your users would have to upload the torrent using the File Uploader on the tracker first, and then post and/or upload the torrent elsewhere.

If you use the ETD, it will be necessary for your Allowed/Upload Directory to be mirrored on the external web server. I leave the method for this task to your discretion, as there are numerous ways this can be done.

PLEASE NOTE: BNBT does not have the ability to parse or catalog a directory that resides on an external web server. The Allowed/Upload Directory must reside on the same system/network as the tracker.

To enable the ETD, simply specify the full URL to the directory on the external web server that will contain a copy of the torrents found in your Allowed/Upload Directory.

bnbt_external_torrent_dir = http://someother.domain.com/path.to.torrents/

PLEASE NOTE: It will most likely be necessary for the external web server to be configured for the downloading of torrent files (files that have a .torrent extension. If the external web server is not configured properly, the torrent file will be displayed as a text document in the user's web browser when the download link is clicked.

Web server configuration differs from server to server. Please consult your server's documentation on how to add MIME Filetypes.

The file extension for torrent files is torrent

The MIME type for torrent files is application/x-bittorrent