Download repository advice

[SSD]

I believe that torrents are frequently associated with peer file sharing and questionable exchange of copyrighted materials like music and video.  I know that there are legitimate uses of the technology, and if this were the only option maybe I would be supportive, but with bubbaQ's generous offer, I think Tom should just host it there and create a link to it from his site.

 

[NLS]

...and between all these, 4.3.2 is nowhere to be found yet...

 

 

[tstolze]

If you are going to have several people host the file, I can help. I use Powweb( ) and use very little of my 400 gigs a month.

[Joe L.]

Dear Community,

 

We have the next release, 4.3.2, ready to upload; however there's a bit of a problem.  We are already close to our allotment of 40GB/month bandwidth, and if we post 4.3.2, this will put us over the top and result in the entire website, forums, and wiki getting "bandwidth exceeded" page 

A few more days, and the need for an alternate host will be postponed until the next time multiple releases occur in a single month, as on July 1st, Tom should have another 40GB allotment, in fact, based on the download profile and past experience, he might be able to put the release in place now, as many people will not download it until the 1st anyway, and the bandwidth remaining in June's allotment can handle the expected traffic.

 

Joe L.

 

 

[WeeboTech]

How many are willing to use a torrent? I posted a lilnk to the command line ctorrent program the other day.

Has anyone downloaded or tried it out?

[hawihoney]

How many are willing to use a torrent? I posted a lilnk to the command line ctorrent program the other day.

Has anyone downloaded or tried it out?

 

Interesting thread. I'm using many protocols but torrent was never a descision for me. In fact I don't know what it is.

 

Just to put my 0.02 in: I have no idea how to use a "torrent" (do you call it that way?) Please give my HTTP or FTP download.

 

Thanks

Harald

 

[NAS]

How many are willing to use a torrent? I posted a lilnk to the command line ctorrent program the other day.

Has anyone downloaded or tried it out?

 

I have not tried your downloads as I am already completely geared up for using torrent. I can add a 100mbit (more if needed) seed within a minute of me seeing the torrent.

[WeeboTech]

Just to put my 0.02 in: I have no idea how to use a "torrent" (do you call it that way?) Please give my HTTP or FTP download.

 

First you find/locate a .torrent file (which is published by a person who generates and/or seeds the data).

 

Downlioad it to one of your shares.

This can be done with a browser, or directly on your server with wget or curl if you have them installed.

 

With the client I ciompiled , you open a terminal session and just type ctorrent <filename.torrent>

Then wait. It will tell you when it's done then seed it for others for a short time after.

 

I plan to release any customized packages this way.

Since I don't pay my friend for hosting, I do not want to burden his machines either.

 

 

[paulvincit]

Just download utorrent - the rest is easy. I currently have a seedbox and would be happy to seed for a while. Where is the .torrent file?

 

If you don't have a tracker why not use thepiratebay.org - & give unraid even more exposure.

[hawihoney]

Just download utorrent - the rest is easy. I currently have a seedbox and would be happy to seed for a while. Where is the .torrent file?

 

Tried it. Software says I have to open a port and redirect it to my computer. No, never! Sorry to say that, but this way of software download is not applicable for me.

 

Regards

Harald

 

[NAS]

Just download utorrent - the rest is easy. I currently have a seedbox and would be happy to seed for a while. Where is the .torrent file?

 

Tried it. Software says I have to open a port and redirect it to my computer. No, never! Sorry to say that, but this way of software download is not applicable for me.

 

Regards

Harald

 

 

you do not need to do that. i wont go into the reason why as they are OT but it will work perfectly fine without doing this.

 

FYI when i moved my project over to torrent i had the same kind of posts as this one. It made no difference to the amounts of downloads.

[WeeboTech]

Maybe it's my router, but I did not open up any ports.

"some" routers are smart enough to allow bi directional traffic to people who you have already established a connection with.

I do remember reading that opening up a port makes it faster..

But with some files I'm getting 400kb/s download speeds.

 

In any case, it does not serve your needs, don't use it.

 

AS mentioned...

> A few more days, and the need for an alternate host will be postponed

 

[NLS]

Indeed it's your router Weebo. There are smart enough routers today, but mostly based on UPnP (which I don't think a linux client supports - not sure)

 

As for opening a port towards your computer (Harald), I don't get the terror of the thought.

A well configured firewall with well configured computers are safe enough (stress on "enough" - because you are never totally safe... with port forwarding or not).

 

The risk of visiting the "wrong" site or opening the "wrong" email is much worse than the effect of opening a high port towards a specific address when in that address you allow it to accept this port only through a specified program.

 

You know what is safer? Plug off your router, start reading more newspapers (don't forget to wash hands afterwards, this recycled paper sucks) and wait for someone to send you a CD with the new release. Don't forget to virus scan the CD AND check with at least two antispy afterwards (personal windows favorites: adaware and spybot).

 

(and yes I am known to make bad and "rough" jokes from time to time - when triggered by something)

 

 

[NAS]

In simple terms opening a port allows you to see all peers in the swarm. If you dont open ports you can only connect to peers that have done the port forwarding.

 

In the context on unRAID distribution its pretty irrelevant as there will be a few seed boxes setup properly to distribute faster than just about any home connection could handle.

[john1928]

So anyone seeding a torrent for this now?

 

I'd love to see the chown problem fixed to do some more playing this weekend.

 

Thanks!

[SSD]

There seems to be a varying amount of knowledge about what torrents are and how this technology works.  Here is a non-technical description of how it works.  I hope that those that use the technology more will be able to make corrections if any of this material is incorrect or misleading.

 

You install the client software on your computer and become one of a network of interconnected participating computers.

 

You are able to search for files.  You can also dl ".torrent" files from the internet that act as links to torrent downloads.

 

The system attempts to locate a computer within the current network that contains the file you want.

 

Larger files are broken into pieces.  If you are attempting to download a file that contains multiple pieces, the network tries to find each of the pieces.

 

It is possible that you will find some of the pieces but not all, it will download what it can. It will then wait for the other pieces to appear (e.g., another computer can join the network that has one of the pieces you need).

 

While connected, you are a participant.  So while you are downloading piece 12, someone else may be downloading piece 8 from YOU that you downloaded yesterday.  The network is trying to balance usage.

 

Some of the software names for clients include the word "mule" (e.g., eMule).  It is an apt metaphor.  Torrents are NOT fast downloads.  I once needed to download a 100 Meg software update that I could not find anywhere else.  Asking on a forum someone posted a .torrent that they had used.  It took the better part of 2 days to get most of the pieces.  There were only a few people that had pieces of this file - so I had to wait for some of the pieces.  At the end I was missing ONE piece.  I asked on the forum and someone made it available to complete my download.

 

Seeding a torrent (new terminology to me) must mean putting the first version of a file to the network.

 

I have a special VM set up to run the torrent client software.  While not downloading something, I do not run that VM.  I have only used it a handful of times.

 

This is a very impressive technology, and I think it could and probably is used for many legitimate purposes.  BUT, as I said before, I think this is VIEWED as a seedy, not 100% above board, means of sharing copyrighted or pirated material.

 

My most recent experience with .torrent is trying to download a free VMware image with a full Slackware install.  It was mentioned in these forums and I was able to dl a .torrent for it from the VMware site.  But it was not located and could therefore not be downloaded.

 

IN MY OPINION, using torrents as the primary means of distributing commercial software is not a good idea for 2 reasons, (1) many users just won't go to the trouble (and potentially security exposure) to install the client; and (2) it may negatively affect the perception of the product.  BUT I think it is a great way to distribute scripts and tools, especially big things, through these forums.  They would be available for a limited period of time and the bandwidth shared among the forum members.

[WeeboTech]

IN MY OPINION, using torrents as the primary means of distributing commercial software is not a good idea for 2 reasons, (1) many users just won't go to the trouble (and potentially security exposure) to install the client; and (2) it may negatively affect the perception of the product.  BUT I think it is a great way to distribute scripts and tools, especially big things, through these forums.  They would be available for a limited period of time and the bandwidth shared among the forum members.

 

Here's why it was mentioned as an alternative.

The board's traffic volume is reaching a point where it is going to cost more.

We have the choice to wait next month, or get it earlier by cooperating in a network of delivery.

Yes, I know we all paid for it. But we paid for one versions of it and will get the benefit of multiple versions for a long time.

Having this community available costs money via traffic and time. Yes it's the cost of business. but again, are we just interested in getting a product are are we a community to help proper the product further and faster to suit our needs?

 

I'll say it again, We have the choice to wait next month, or get it earlier by cooperating in a network of delivery.

The other choice, which I have not seen occur, is to pony up more dollars and post it here or elsewhere.

 

I'll ask this... How often would you like to see distribution updates?

 

My preference is to see them more often then what's occurred in the past. I feel unRAID has allot of untapped potential, but also some lingering core issues.

 

If the right software were automatically included on the distribution, and a few buttons were put on emhttp, I think some of this could be automated whereby we the community could help support the product more.

 

I never suggested using a .torrent as the primary means of distribution, more so as a temporary means to assist our beloved author.  (like that brown nosing ?? LOL!!!!!! )

 

BTW, Thanks for the description... Should we start a wiki section?

 

I could see unRAID becoming very useful as a torrent box.. I see in other NAS boxes torrent support being added and if it's not there people clamoring for it.

 

[hawihoney]

IN MY OPINION, using torrents as the primary means of distributing commercial software is not a good idea for 2 reasons, (1) many users just won't go to the trouble (and potentially security exposure) to install the client; and (2) it may negatively affect the perception of the product.

 

Full ACK. If I'm forced to use this kind of technology I would stop with the current release of unRAID. I'm waiting for a fix in 4.3.2 as well, but I would drop my requirement to add a 15th data drive at the eSATA port then. I can use this extra 1TB drive for something else then.

 

I try to keep that little control of where I download things and what I download. If I can't download a commercial product from the website of the company behind the product I don't trust them. This is one of my little, call them paranoid, rules. In now over 29 years in IT I never had a virus or something like that (and I don't use VMs to be save). Call me stupid, but I will not change my way to use the internet (formerly Compuserve, formerly BBS, ... you get the idea).

 

Yesterday I paid for my 1-year UltraEdit update. Why not pay for my 1-year unRAID update. In my opinion paying people for their great work is an absolute requirement.

 

@NLS: I don't want to get into detail - but your mail to me wasn't that friendly. There are in fact several differences between mail (I only accept text mails, BASTA), CDs and open ports on my wire-based (no WLAN) router. I hope you know them - at least I think so ;-)

 

Sorry

Harald

 

[NAS]

Heres what happens with my other project. I use torrent to distribute it. Loads of people moaned and said NEVER and GOODBYE alot when i announced this was happening. After i changed downloads increased. lol There will always be ney sayers that dont want to accept change.

 

Also a few members grab the torrent and host the files direct on their own webpages posting links on the forum. This is up to them and its fine by me. They do the work and i dont need to manage mirrors making it the users decision to either grab it via torrent officially or wait until there is an unofficial mirror.

 

One common misconception is that torrents dont uses a tracker to introduce peers. Think if it like a dating agency; you only ever get introduced to people that have exactly what you want. Your computer only talks to people who are in the swarm of users sharing that one torrent. Your computer doesn't announce files your sharing or go off and find random people itself (this is not emule or some other P2P protocol). I can go into the specs of the protocol in just about any level anyone wants as i have done alot of research. Its safe. Its efficient. Its scalable and most of all its fast.

[SSD]

Here's why it was mentioned as an alternative.

The board's traffic volume is reaching a point where it is going to cost more.

We have the choice to wait next month, or get it earlier by cooperating in a network of delivery.

Yes, I know we all paid for it. But we paid for one versions of it and will get the benefit of multiple versions for a long time.

Having this community available costs money via traffic and time. Yes it's the cost of business. but again, are we just interested in getting a product are are we a community to help proper the product further and faster to suit our needs?

 

I'll say it again, We have the choice to wait next month, or get it earlier by cooperating in a network of delivery.

The other choice, which I have not seen occur, is to pony up more dollars and post it here or elsewhere.

 

This is Tom's issue.  With success comes more liceense sales.  This creates the need for more bandwidth.  Tom may need to rethink how he hosts his site, or how he licenses his product, how he distributes updates, how he hosts his forum, etc. to managed costs and maintain a profitable enterprise.  If he does make a change, I hope it only applies to new users, and that existing customers are grandfathered.

 

I would expect that fixes for serious bugs would be made available soon after they are corrected to avoid negatively affecting users.

 

I would like to see unRAID move from a custom OS, to a component that plugs into the standard Slackware (or maybe other) distro of Linux.  The USB key can still be a requirement to protect against piracy.  The downloads would be smaller, the clammering for VMware, audio support, and other recurring themes would go away, and the size of the downloads would go down hugely.  The "customized OS" flavor could still be available for users, but my guess is that most of us would try to migrate to a standard distro install.  A well-written "how to" guide to create a "lean and mean" Linux config, with links to the required tools would be required so that users had the confidence to try this approach.  Tom could document compatibility of certain releasess with certain distros (or maybe just one distro) to minimize his testing effort.

 

I'll ask this... How often would you like to see distribution updates?

 

My preference is to see them more often then what's occurred in the past. I feel unRAID has allot of untapped potential, but also some lingering core issues.

 

I am okay with the current frequency of updates.  I think that Tom does a good job testing, but even so, we are seeing numerous posts of non-beta versions creating problems for some users.  If the effect of more frequent updates is less regression testing, I am not in favor of that.  I WOULD like to see more "action" on the high priority user requested features, but am a pretty happy camper in general with my unRAID server.

 

If the right software were automatically included on the distribution, and a few buttons were put on emhttp, I think some of this could be automated whereby we the community could help support the product more.

 

Don't really understand this - are you talking about auto-update?  I would be hesitant to allow software updates to occur automatically.

 

I never suggested using a .torrent as the primary means of distribution, more so as a temporary means to assist our beloved author.  (like that brown nosing ?? LOL!!!!!! )

 

I think it was an excellent and very appropriate suggestion.  But since bubbaQ and a few others offered the ability to host the file via direct links (which I think we all agree is a better option), I think we should just go with that.

 

BTW, Thanks for the description... Should we start a wiki section?

 

Thanks.  I wish I could do more on the technical side like you, Joe L., bubbaQ, and others.  I hope my sometimes overly simplistic explainations help people to understand some of the important topics discussed.

 

I added a link to the Best of page (see my sig), in the miscellaneous posts section.

 

I could see unRAID becoming very useful as a torrent box.. I see in other NAS boxes torrent support being added and if it's not there people clamoring for it.

 

I think this is a great feature for those that use torrent.  As long as it isn't something you HAVE to do, I don't think the Harolds of the world (which includes me!) would have any problem with this.

[brain:proxy]

These guys have a great reputation in the OSS community.  Very affordable with emphasis on software repositories.

 

http://www.budgetdedicated.com/

 

In regards to everyone freaking out over the risks of even running a bittorrent client, without port forwarding vs a direct download from the publisher's site:

 

You'll have a hard time finding a Linux/BSD/GNU OS that *doesn't* offer both direct and BT.    By all means, don't open a port on your router.  For those of you with SOHO level routers, I bet you have uPnP enabled (On by default most of the time).  This is probably the most insecure idea to come out in a long time.  Allowing applications to decide to open ports. Disable it.

 

However,

 

In regards to risks, concerning Viruses and tampering:

 

If Lime makes available MD5sums for their releases and what you download matches that, what is the risk, then? =)  If the md5sum matches the md5 of the download, it hasn't been tampered, molested or laced with cyanide. =)

 

[WeeboTech]

These guys have a great reputation in the OSS community.  Very affordable with emphasis on software repositories.

 

http://www.budgetdedicated.com/

 

13 GBP is like $26 USD.. that's not much of a bargain wtih 64MB of ram and 2GB of disk space.

 

 

[Joe L.]

These guys have a great reputation in the OSS community.  Very affordable with emphasis on software repositories.

 

http://www.budgetdedicated.com/

 

13 GBP is like $26 USD.. that's not much of a bargain wtih 64MB of ram and 2GB of disk space.

 

 

Not a huge bargain when compared to the site5.com host offer I posted earlier.  $5 per month, unlimited bandwidth and storage if you pay for 5 years in advance. ($300)  Even if you don't want to commit to it for the web-site itself, it is about as good an offer as any.  If you don't have the 300. to prepay to get the $5 rate, then it is as high as $12.00 per month, paid quarterly.

 

        60 Months (5 Years) - Best Value! $5.00 per month

  36 Months (3 Years) $6.50 per month

  24 Months (2 Years) $7.40 per month

  12 Months (Annual Billing) $9.95 per month

  Every 3 Months (Quarterly Billing) $11.95 per month

 

They've hosted over 200,000 web-sites since 1999 and upgraded their data centers and hardware recently.  The $5 deal is not a dedicated server, but it is a dedicated IP address.  You can request a unix login and have access via FTP, etc.  You get basically your own changeroot environment.  I do not know if they support the software Tom needs, but it is as likely as any.  If nothing else, the downloads could be put there to free up bandwidth on the main HOST site.      I don't have anything to do with them other than I've assumed webmaster responsibility on one site that was hosed by them, and migrated website another to them, also on a $5 per month deal.  The site I migrated is a professional society, specialized web-site that might use 1 Gig of bandwidth per month out of the 5000 GB per month they are allocated.  I did not choose site5 or their hosting plan because of the bandwidth needed, but because of the $5 per month cost.  (It was a non-profit)

 

Joe L.

[WeeboTech]

I've learned two things.

 

1. There is no such thing as unlimited.

2. You get what you pay for.

 

In point 1. once your unlimited bandwidth becomes a burden, they will throttle you or ask you to leave.

In point 2. At $5.00 what service level can you expect with regards to technical support. Many times my friend has scooped the competition because these $5.00/month deals end up being less then adequate for hosting.

 

I'm not saying this is a bad deal, In fact it's a great deal. You just have to be careful of what it is you are getting.

If it were used just to house files and the distribution, it may turn out to be an excellent deal.

 

For the cost of 2 pro licenses, you have supposedly unlimited storage and bandwidth.

This could be a great way to house a repository of software for the distribution AND third party software.

 

[Joe L.]

I've learned two things.

 

1. There is no such thing as unlimited.

2. You get what you pay for.

 

In point 1. once your unlimited bandwidth becomes a burden, they will throttle you or ask you to leave.

True, but since the normal limit I have on my other sites hosted by them is 5000 GB, I think that most people just do not use anywhere near that bandwidth (like my two sites).  It is more marketing than anything else, the hardware will limit the bandwidth at some point, that is for sure.  Here is a thread on their support forum discussing the use of "unlimited" in their marketing http://forums.site5.com/showthread.php?t=23278  They expect some small percentage of users to max out their hardware/network bandwidth, while others use far less.  A support forum is a good addition to providing support... Who knows, a few dedicated (unpaid) individuals just might assist with many of the answers to questions.  http://forums.site5.com/index.php

In point 2. At $5.00 what service level can you expect with regards to technical support. Many times my friend has scooped the competition because these $5.00/month deals end up being less then adequate for hosting.    You can browse their support forums to get an idea of support issues: http://forums.site5.com/index.php  Looks like they have about 9000 servers in their data center.  (and recently had an electrical explosion in their power room... I was not aware of it at all as it did not affect my sites)

So, a support forum is a major step forward in providing information to customers.  When I logged on earlier, I was alreted to their plans to upgrade their version of MySQL

 

I'm not saying this is a bad deal, In fact it's a great deal. You just have to be careful of what it is you are getting.

If it were used just to house files and the distribution, it may turn out to be an excellent deal.

My point exactly,  now, as far as support, it was via e-mail, although their support is 24/7, so I'd always get back a response from an auto-responder.  soon thereafter, I'd get a response from a person, and follow up e-mail and status reports.... My only requests, for about three years now has been to request an SSL cert to be installed, or to request FTP access, or a unix login.  Other than that, their servers have just worked. (I guess that one advantage to being on a shared server is that frequently others will complain before you even know something is amiss.  As far as I know, I am on a server with 4Gig of ram and "Dual 5130 Xeon processors (4 cores!)"  Response is actually pretty snappy.   

 

Is it perfect, probably not.   But I'm thinking of signing up for the $5 deal just for my personal off-site storage space and web-site.  I don't even need a domain name, I can reference it via IP address for simple storage needs.   I'll never have to worry about how many photos I post of family gatherings, picnics, weddings, etc.

 

For the cost of 2 pro licenses, you have supposedly unlimited storage and bandwidth.

This could be a great way to house a repository of software for the distribution AND third party software.

My point exactly.   Even if Tom's current web-host stays the same, the release downloads could all occur from the alternate site with absolutely no worry about bandwidth (for his needs, anyway)   

 

Joe L.