bittorrent-tracker

Simple, robust, BitTorrent tracker (client & server) implementation

Node.js implementation of a BitTorrent tracker, client and server.

A BitTorrent tracker is an HTTP service which responds to GET requests from BitTorrent clients. The requests include metrics from clients that help the tracker keep overall statistics about the torrent. The response includes a peer list that helps the client participate in the torrent.

Also see bittorrent-dht. This module is used by WebTorrent.

features

Includes client & server implementations
Supports UDP protocol (BEP 15) (client only, for now)

install

npm install bittorrent-tracker

usage

client

To connect to a tracker, just do this:

var Client = require('bittorrent-tracker').Client
var parseTorrent = require('parse-torrent')

var torrent = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/torrents/bitlove-intro.torrent')
var parsedTorrent = parseTorrent(torrent) // { infoHash: 'xxx', length: xx, announce: ['xx', 'xx'] }

var peerId = new Buffer('01234567890123456789')
var port = 6881

var client = new Client(peerId, port, parsedTorrent)

// you must add an 'error' event handler!
client.on('error', function (err) {
  console.log(err.message)
  // a tracker was unavailable or sent bad data to the client. you can probably ignore it
})

// start getting peers from the tracker
client.start()

client.on('update', function (data) {
  console.log('got a response from tracker: ' + data.announce)
  console.log('number of seeders on this tracker: ' + data.complete)
  console.log('number of leechers on this tracker: ' + data.incomplete)
})

client.once('peer', function (addr) {
  console.log('found a peer: ' + addr) // 85.10.239.191:48623
})

// announce that download has completed (and you are now a seeder)
client.complete()

// force a tracker announce. will trigger more 'update' events and maybe more 'peer' events
client.update()

// stop getting peers from the tracker, gracefully leave the swarm
client.stop()

server

To start a BitTorrent tracker server to track swarms of peers:

var Server = require('bittorrent-tracker').Server

var server = new Server()

// you must add an 'error' event handler!
server.on('error', function (err) {
  console.log(err.message)
})

server.on('listening', function () {
  console.log('tracker server is listening!')
})

// start tracker server listening!
server.listen(port)

// listen for individual tracker messages from peers:

server.on('start', function (addr, params) {
  console.log('got start message from ' + addr)
  console.log('params in the message: ' + JSON.stringify(params))
})

server.on('complete', function (addr, params) {})
server.on('update', function (addr, params) {})
server.on('stop', function (addr, params) {})

// get info hashes for all torrents in the tracker server
Object.keys(server.torrents)

// get the number of seeders for a particular torrent
server.torrents[infoHash].complete

// get the number of leechers for a particular torrent
server.torrents[infoHash].incomplete

// get the peers who are in a particular torrent swarm
server.torrents[infoHash].peers

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