Tubes: BitTorrent and you!

As a network security major I have learned a lot of neat stuff over the years.  Tubes is a segment where we will discuss various tips and tricks and concepts relating to networking.




Many of you are probably already familiar with one of the most popular peer-to-peer file sharing protocols in use today known as BitTorrent.  For those not familiar with BitTorrent this article will outline everything you will need to get started.   Let's say you want to download one of your favorite pieces of open source software but don't want to deal with throttled direct download speeds from the distributing website or would simply like more control over the way you download and control your bandwidth.

The Basics
Once you find a torrent file of said software you can use a BitTorrent client to start downloading your software.  While directly downloading a file you are making a point to point connection with the host, usually a server somewhere, and downloading the file directly from them.  Your BitTorrent client takes the torrent file, which is basically a file that instructs the BitTorrent client on where to look for your piece of software, and starts grabbing pieces from various other users sharing that piece of software.  This allows you to download a file in small pieces from multiple users at the same time, usually resulting in generally faster speeds and allows developers to distribute their work without the expensive costs of hosting large files on their servers.

Gearing Up
The first thing you will need is a BitTorrent client.  There are a number of clients available at this point.  The hot client today is Utorrent.  uTorrent is a pretty light-weight client with a deep feature set.  uTorrent is the client I use and will be the client I base any further guides concerning BitTorrent.  Installing uTorrent is as straight forward as installing most software, simply run utorrent.exe and follow the dialogue options.  Once you have your client installed it's time to find your torrent.

Torrent Sloothing
There are plenty of websites dedicated to tracking torrents.  A quick google search will turn up dozens of viable websites.  There are two types of torrent tracking websites, private and public.  A private website requires users register before they are allowed to use its services.  Some private websites may also require you pay for membership or use an invite only plan.  A popular public torrent tracking websites is IsoHunt.  Once you have downloaded your torrent file it's time for you to put that cool client you downloaded earlier to use.

Profit
Now you have all the pieces you need to start your download.  Simply double clicking the torrent file should automatically start uTorrent and begin to download your files.  If at any point torrent files become disassociated with uTorrent you can re-establish association manually.  To associate torrent files with uTorrent you will start by right-clicking the torrent file and selecting the "open with" option followed by the "choose default program..."  You will now be required to navigate to the install directory of uTorrent.  Using 64-bit Windows 7 the install path would be C:\Program Files (x86)\uTorrent for example.  Once you have located the utorrent.exe application you simply select it.  This will ensure that any time you double click a torrent file uTorrent will know exactly what to do.


Useful Links
uTorrent Website
ISOHUNT
BitTorrent

I will be posting another guide in the near future pertaining to tweaking and speeding up uTorrent so check back often!

Lighting a match

    Welcome to News for Morlocks.  In the coming days and months I will be posting original writings and interesting news based on all things nerd.  I will be posting game reviews, nerdy recipes, dungeons and dragons campaigns and anything else that comes to mind.  Check back often to see what comes of this whole thing!