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Apparently it's not a working/not working issue.

I have setup uTorrent server in my Xubuntu 14.04 following these instructions. How do I install utorrent on ubuntu 14.04 other instructions seem specific to older versions of the os

Worked great except for two things that had to change from the original set of instructions 1. The configuration specified there says the WebGUI folder is in

/usr/local/utorrent/webui/ When it actually should be web since no specifications were given during the unzip operation

  1. I have to start uTorrent each time with the following command

    sudo -i utorrent -settingspath /usr/local/utorrent/

Now why is that? As far as I know sudo -i option is used so that the dotfiles of the root user are used. But how come this is not required by the original poster?

Community
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Unrealist
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    Just a comment: It is a really bad idea to run uTorrent (or any server software for that matter) as root, even if the linked post instructed you to. That is really bad advice. You should create a separate user using adduser and run uTorrent as that user. You don't even need to install it into /usr/local, just put uTorrent in the new user's home directory. – jmiserez Aug 11 '14 at 15:32
  • @JeremieMiserez That seems to go a long way--and perhaps the whole way---toward answering this question. You might want to post it, or something very much like it, as an answer. – Eliah Kagan Aug 11 '14 at 15:35
  • @EliahKagan Done. – jmiserez Aug 11 '14 at 16:12

1 Answers1

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  1. It is a really bad idea to run uTorrent (or any server software for that matter) as root, even if the linked post instructed you to. That is really bad advice. You should create a separate user using adduser and run uTorrent as that user. You don't even need to install it into /usr/local, just put uTorrent in the new user's home directory.

  2. Is uTorrent really what you need? It is closed source and hasn't been regularly updated. There are various open-source clients available, even the default Transmission has a web interface.

Here is how I'd do it. Of course if you want a service etc. you'd need to look that up separately. This is just the very simple version:

$ sudo apt-get -y install libssl0.9.8
$ sudo adduser torrent
$ sudo cp ~/Downloads/utserver.tar.gz /home/torrent/
$ sudo su - torrent
$ ln -s ~/utorrent-server-alpha-v3_3/ ~/utorrent
$ cd ~/utorrent
$ unzip webui
$ mkdir maint torrents.queue torrents.active
$ cat << EOF > ~/utorrent/utserver.conf
dir_root: /home/torrent/utorrent/
ut_webui_dir: /home/torrent/utorrent/webui/
dir_active: /home/torrent/utorrent/torrents.active/
dir_completed: /home/torrent/Downloads/
dir_temp_files: /home/torrent/utorrent/tmp
dir_autoload: /home/torrent/utorrent/torrents.queue/
dir_request: /home/torrent/utorrent/maint
EOF
$ ./utorrent/utserver -settingspath /home/torrent/utorrent/ &
$ exit

Now uTorrent runs as user torrent, the web UI is available on localhost:8080/gui, user admin, no password. Files will be downloaded to /home/torrent/Downloads/. If you need to download to any other directory, make sure that the torrent user has write permissions to the directory. If you have a desktop interface installed, you could also run it as your desktop user.

You can stop the server forcibly by issuing sudo pkill utserver (which will kill uTorrent), or whatever the recommended way to stop it is.

jmiserez
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  • I know the whole idea could, should and would go with permissions. And this method is probably a bulletproof one, taking out all the risks. So thanks.

    I need to use uTorrent mostly because this one is most compatible with the private trackers in my country. That's it. I originally am just an aria2 user and loved it.

     – Unrealist Aug 11 '14 at 19:37
  • Make sure to add a password after you're done, the default is no password. – jmiserez Aug 12 '14 at 14:18