How to Install Bittorrent-Tracker from https://webtorrent.io/ on OpenBSD

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Bittorrent-Tracker on OpenBSD. Bittorrent-Tracker is an open-source implementation of the BitTorrent tracker protocol. We will use the WebTorrent.io implementation of Bittorrent-Tracker as it is actively maintained and offers a more modern implementation of the protocol.

Prerequisites

Before we proceed with the installation process, make sure that you have the following:

• OpenBSD installed on your server
• Access to a terminal with root privileges

Step 1: Install Node.js and NPM

First, we need to install Node.js and NPM (Node Package Manager). NPM is used to manage dependencies for Node.js modules.

To install Node.js and NPM, run the following command:

pkg_add node

This will install the latest version of Node.js and NPM on your system.

Step 2: Install Bittorrent-Tracker

Now that we have Node.js and NPM installed, we can proceed with the installation of Bittorrent-Tracker.

To install Bittorrent-Tracker, run the following command:

npm install -g bittorrent-tracker

This will install the latest version of Bittorrent-Tracker globally on your system.

Step 3: Configure Bittorrent-Tracker

Before we can use Bittorrent-Tracker, we need to create a configuration file. We will create a file called tracker.config.js in the home directory of the bittorrent user (which we will create in the next step).

nano /home/bittorrent/tracker.config.js

Paste the following configuration into the file:

module.exports = {
  // This should be set to the IP address or hostname of your server.
  // It should also be set to the IP address or hostname that clients will use to connect to the tracker.
  // This should not be set to 0.0.0.0 or localhost as clients will not be able to connect.
  // Example:
  // 'tracker.webtorrent.io'
  // Alternatively (if IP changes), use console command `hostname -i` on server to find IP address
  // '192.168.0.100'
  // "0.0.0.0" should be avoided, as it is not accessible from outside
  // as well as "localhost"
  "announce": [
    "http://tracker.webtorrent.io/announce"
  ],

  // This is the UDP port that the tracker will listen on.
  // If you do not want to use UDP, you can set this to false.
  "udp": 6881,

  // This is the number of seconds that the tracker will wait before removing peers that have not updated their status.
  "interval": 1800,

  // This is the number of seconds that the tracker will wait before considering a peer to be dead.
  "minInterval": 120,

  // This is the maximum number of peers that will be sent to clients during a scrape request.
  "maxPeers": 50
}

Save and close the file.

Step 4: Create a User for Bittorrent-Tracker

We need to create a user for Bittorrent-Tracker to run under. This will help to keep your system secure.

To create a new user, run the following command:

adduser -group bittorrent -shell /bin/ksh -home /home/bittorrent bittorrent

This will create a new user called bittorrent, create a group called bittorrent, set the user's default shell to ksh, and create a home directory for the user at /home/bittorrent.

Step 5: Start Bittorrent-Tracker

Now that we have created a user for Bittorrent-Tracker and created a configuration file, we can start the Bittorrent-Tracker service.

To start the service, run the following command as the bittorrent user:

bittorrent-tracker --config /home/bittorrent/tracker.config.js

This will start Bittorrent-Tracker, and it will listen on the port specified in the configuration file.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Bittorrent-Tracker on OpenBSD. You can now use your new tracker to share files with others using the BitTorrent protocol.

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