APEX Torrent Server Usage Guide v3 Issued 10/2017 2. 3. Common Terms ● Torrent – Can refer either to the *.torrent pointer file, or the content that file points to. ● Magnet link – Link to the content of a *.torrent file, avoiding the need to download the *.torrent file. ● Seed – To upload or share a file. ● Leach – To download but not seed a file, or to have a ratio below 1. ● Peers – Other machines downloading the same file your machine is. ● Ratio – How much you have seeded vs. how much you have downloaded. The goal is 1 or higher. ● Proper and Repack – If a show is originally uploaded with an encode error, audio sync issue, or other problem, a Repack or Proper will be uploaded with the problem resolved. These are usually released a few days after the show has aired. ● RSS – Rich Site Summary (or Really Simply Syndication.) Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works. In this context, to publish magnet links to new content. ● ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival. ● AVI – file type. Used for video and audio. ● MKV – file type. Used for video and audio. Supports multichannel audio and subtitles. ● MP4 – file type. Used for video and audio. Supports multichannel audio. ● MP3 – file type. Used for audio. ● FLAC – file type. Used for high quality audio. Not playable by iTunes or QuickTime without plugins. ● RAR – file type. Compressed files, often multipart files, (e.g. file.r01, file .r02) The automated system does not decompress these files, it must be done manually. 4. Accessing and Using the qBittorrent Interface Open a web browser and go to cartwright.no-ip.or g . Click on Torrent Download Remote Access, and log in. The credentials are as follows: ● User name: HTPC ● Password: please see administrator This password is used for other systems, please do not distribute it. This will get you into the qBittorrent downloader web interface. Fig 1.01 – The Deluge web interface 1. – Allows you to paste a magnet link from a torrent site. 2. - Adds a *.torrent file from your local machine 3. – Removes selected download from the queue, with the option to delete the data. 4. - Starts or resumes a download. 5. – To temporarily halt a download. 6. - The left icon moves the selected items to the top of the queue, the right icon moves it up one priority level. 5. 7. - Moves the selected file down in the queue. 8. - Settings Right clicking on a torrent item will open a context menu: Fig 1.02 – Context menu ● Resume, Delete, Priority – Identical to the menu bar buttons ● Force Resume - Forces a stalled download to restart ● Label – This is very important. Label the files appropriately, so the automatic file organizer can appropriately sort the files and add them to the video library. The options currently are: movies, tv, music. ● Force Recheck – Forces the program to scan the files already downloaded to make sure everything has been downloaded correctly. It is very important to label manually downloaded files. Doing so ensures proper sorting and adding to the video library. If downloads are not labeled, they will be automatically deleted. 6. Downloading .torrent Files Torrent files can originate from anywhere, and can contain almost anything. It is important, therefore, to only download from reputable websites. Here are the top three sites for downloading movies and TV shows: ● The Pirate Bay - http://thepiratebay.se/ - For anything ● Yify - http://www.yify-torrents.com/ - For HD movies ● EZTV - http://eztv.it/ - For TV shows There are typically two ways to download a Torrent. Once is to download a small pointer file, a *.torrent file, and open that with your desktop Torrent client. The other way is to use a Magnet link, which avoids the need to download the *.torrent file, as the client pulls the data directly from the web. Since we are using a network-based client, simply clicking on the Magnet link will not start the download on the server. It will likely cause an error message on your local machine. You must copy and paste the Magnet link into the web interface. Magnet links usually look like red U shaped magnets: 7. Figures 1.03-1.05 – Examples of Magnet link buttons from Yify, The Pirate Bay, and EZTV Simply right-click on the link, and select “Copy Link Location.” Then go to the qBittorrent server, and click the button, and paste the link. It’s as simple as that. Figure 1.06 – Adding magnet link URL Remember to label your torrents once the download has been added. To check the files contained in the torrent, click the Content tab. Figure 1.07 – The Files tab. If the files contained in the download are RAR files, then the decompression has to be done manually. This is accomplished with WinRAR, available under All Programs, in the Start Menu. Think when you download. A three hour long feature film won’t be 300 MB, and a half-hour TV show shouldn’t be 12 GB. 8. Automatic Downloading qBittorrent has a useful feature of automatically downloading files from an RSS feed. In our usage, it is used to download new episodes of our favorite shows. showRSS ( http://showrss.info/) aggregates multiple feeds for many different TV shows. To add a new show to this “master” feed, simply go to the website and log on with the following credentials: ● Username: cartwright ● Password: same as the web UI password from earlier. Figure 1.08 – showRSS account page. 1. Your Shows – click to navigate to this page. 2. Show Drop Down – list of all the shows showRSS tracks. 3. X – remove show from feed. 4. Gear – change settings (quality and repacks) 5. HD or SD – quality filter for that show 6. Show name 7. HD file – name is colored turquoise 8. SD file – name is colored blue 9. Repacked file – name is colored green 9. Add a show by simply clicking the show drop down menu, and selecting the show. Click the “Add to my list!” button. You can also search the list by clicking the “Search” button. Each show has two options under the gear link: Quality and Proper. Quality is SD, HD, or both. Typically the SD version comes out first, since it is smaller and faster to upload. Selecting both here will download both files, as they become available. Proper is either set to do not include, or include. Including propers will download proper and repacked files automatically. That’s it! Now that you have added the show, qBittorrent will automatically download the shows as they become available. qBittorrent will also label the files as tv shows, so they will get sorted and placed in the library properly. 10. Accessing Files You can access the files on the server if you are on our local network or if you’re away from home. The TV and Movies folders have symlinks set up in the Cartwright web server. Simply go to the server’s URL and add /TV or /Movies to access the files. Most files won’t stream, as our connection is not fast enough. It is recommended that you download the files instead of streaming them. When you are on the local network, the Media drive can be accessed via a UNC path, or via an SMB share. On Mac OS, activate the Finder and choose the Go menu. Click “Connect to Server…” The shortcut for this is Command-K. Simply type in smb://apex and click the Connect button. 1.09 – The Connect to Server window. The server will prompt you for a username and password. The credentials are the same as for the web portal. The server will then prompt you for the share to mount. The E drive is the Media drive. 11. 1.10 – Select the E drive Click OK, and it will mount the E drive on your desktop. From here you can stream most files. Downloading is also possible, and recommended if others are trying to use the server. 12. 1.11 – Map Network Drive The server can also be mounted as a UNC path in Windows. Open an Explorer window and right-click on My Computer. Select “Map Network Drive”. Enter the path \\apex\E. Click OK, and the share will now be accessible from My Computer. 13. VPN APEX runs on a VPN most of the time. The service in use is Private Internet Access (PIA.) The service auto-starts on log in, and restarts every 3 hours of inactivity. Unless you have a specific reason to disconnect from the VPN, please leave it turned on. Legitimate reasons for turning off the VPN are: ● Watching Netflix ● That’s it. To deactivate the VPN, push Control, Shift, and V on the keyboard. The mouse will automatically move to the taskbar icon, open the menu, and disconnect. To reconnect, push Control, Shift and C. If you do not reconnect, the computer will automatically do so after 3 hours of inactivity. 14. Workflow The front-end of APEX as a media center is Kodi (formerly XBMC.) The front-end of APEX as a torrent downloader is qBittorrent web interface. There are a few more programs working behind the scenes to make everything work together, though. From qBittorrent, the file starts downloading and lives in E:\Incomplete. The E: drive is a 6TB 3.5” HDD that stores all the media on APEX. As long as the download is labeled properly, once downloading is complete Deluge moves it into E:\Unsorted Media\folder based on the label name. This is where another piece of software takes over: FileBot. qBittorrent runs a Python script every time a file is complete that points FileBot at the newly downloaded file.