Transmission
Warning: | These instructions were only tested on Debian. It will probably work for other Linux distributions, but you might need to adapt the provided instructions. |
In this guide, we will install the BitTorrent client transmission an use it through the web interface.
Prerequisite
For this guide, you will need to have Nginx and nftables installed.
Install
# apt install transmission-daemon
Configure
Listen Address
By default transmission listen on all addresses. Let’s change that and make it listen only on local address.
Edit file /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
and change this line:
"rpc-bind-address": "127.0.0.1",
And make sure that the change is taken into account
# service transmission-daemon reload
Password
Edit file /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
and change these lines:
"rpc-username": "username",
"rpc-password": "mySuperPassword",
And make sure that the change is taken into account
# service transmission-daemon reload
# service transmission-daemon restart
Btrfs
Torrent software download random chunks of files and write them to files. This causes a lot of fragmentation on COW filesystems.
To prevent COW on transmission download folder, use
# chattr -R -C /var/lib/transmission-daemon/downloads/
Firewall
Assuming that you configured nftables as described, you can edit file /etc/nftables/main_config.conf
and add
# Transmission
add element inet main tcp_port_in { 51413 }
add element inet main udp_port_in { 51413 }
add element inet main user_out { debian-transmission }
and activate it using
$ sudo /etc/nftables/reload_main.conf
Webserver
Add the following rules to /etc/nftables/main_config.conf
# Transmission
add element inet main tcp_port_in { 51413 }
add element inet main udp_port_in { 51413 }
add element inet main user_out { debian-transmission }
and activate them with
# /etc/nftables/reload_main.conf
- Create the config file
/etc/nginx/sites-available/transmission.example.org
server { include snippets/listen-http.conf; server_name transmission.example.org; access_log /var/log/nginx/transmission.example.org.access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/transmission.example.org.error.log info; include snippets/acme-challenge.conf; include snippets/https-permanent-redirect.conf; } server { include snippets/listen-https.conf; server_name transmission.example.org; access_log /var/log/nginx/transmission.example.org.access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/transmission.example.org.error.log info; include snippets/acme-challenge.conf; #include snippets/ssl.conf; #ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/transmission.example.org/fullchain.pem; #ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/transmission.example.org/privkey.pem; #include snippets/hsts.conf; location / { include proxy_params; proxy_request_buffering off; proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9091; } location /downloads { auth_basic "You shall not pass!"; auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/generic.htpasswd; root /var/lib/transmission-daemon; autoindex on; } }
- Activate the configuration with
$ sudo nginx_modsite -e transmission.example.org Would you like to reload the Nginx configuration now? (Y/n) Y
- Edit file
/usr/local/etc/certmanage/main.json
and add the following to the list{ "domains": ["transmission.example.org"], "reload": [["/bin/systemctl", "reload", "nginx.service"]] }
- Get your certificate
$ sudo /usr/local/sbin/certmanage Renewing certificate for transmission.example.org that will expire on 0001-01-01 Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log Starting new HTTPS connection (1): acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org Obtaining a new certificate Performing the following challenges: http-01 challenge for transmission.example.org Using the webroot path /var/www/acme-challenge for all unmatched domains. Waiting for verification... Cleaning up challenges Generating key (2048 bits): /etc/letsencrypt/keys/1764_key-certbot.pem Creating CSR: /etc/letsencrypt/csr/1764_csr-certbot.pem IMPORTANT NOTES: - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at /etc/letsencrypt/live/transmission.example.org/fullchain.pem. Your cert will expire on 2025-02-05. To obtain a new or tweaked version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again. To non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run "certbot renew" - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by: Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/donate Donating to EFF: https://eff.org/donate-le Restarting services: systemctl reload nginx.service
- Uncomment the ssl related lines in
/etc/nginx/sites-available/transmission.example.org
and run$ sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
Backup
Transmission is capable of downloading a ton of data. It is likely to cause issues with your backup system.
As data downloaded by transmission is usually quite easy to re-download in case of a data loss, I recommend just excluding transmission folder from backups.
Assuming you are on a Btrfs filesystem an use btrbk for backup, this is as easy as
# service transmission-daemon stop
# mv /var/lib/transmission-daemon/ /var/lib#/transmission-daemon-tmp
# btrfs subvolume create /var/lib/transmission-daemon
Create subvolume '/var/lib/transmission-daemon'
# shopt -s dotglob
# cp -a --reflink=auto /var/lib/transmission-daemon-tmp/* /var/lib/transmission-daemon/
# rm -rf /var/lib/transmission-daemon-tmp/
# service transmission-daemon start