Thread: BITTORRENT GUIDE by spork (and Port Forward information at post #4)

All credits for this guide extends to spork who made it in the announcement thread. I think it deserves more recognition, so I'm guilty of copying and pasting his masterpiece

If people are unconvinced about how easy Bittorrent is to use... here's a quick tutorial for uTorrent. I use uTorrent just because it's VERY small size and easy to use. There's clients out there that are more complicated and what not, but this will be for uTorrent. It's very similar to how other BitTorrent clients will work though, the only difference is the installation and options.

#1) Go here and download the latest version of uTorrent.

#2) Save this file in a folder where you want it to keep it. It doesn't matter where, but if you want to stay consistent with how your computer works, then save it in C:\Program Files\uTorrent (make the folder yourself). If you have no idea what I'm talking about or don't care about having a dedicated folder for it, just leave it on your desktop. Just remember where you put it. If you move it later, run it again from that location.

#3) Click on the uTorrent file.

#4) You're done.

Now...
#1) Find a bittorrent link. It'll look just like a normal web link. For example this page is full of bittorrent links
#2) Click on the link.
#3) If you're using firefox it might give you a dialog like this

If so, then make sure uTorrent is the Open With and click "OK" If you had run uTorrent once earlier, it should put uTorrent as the default.
#4) It'll ask you where to save it. Just pick a location. You can watch it's progress

When it says it's done you can view it. You cannot do anything with the file when it's not complete though.

Note if you minimize uTorrent, it'll hide itself in your task bar, like so


Click on the circled u icon to open it. If you actually close uTorrent (it'll warn you), it'll stop all downloads and uploads. Don't worry if you accidentally do it. Just click on the uTorrent file (where ever you put it) and it'll continue where it left off.

Now, here's something you'll want to do that is not necessary, but trust me, you'll want to do it.

CAPPING YOUR UPLOAD SPEED

#1) Open up uTorrent (click on the file or a short cut to the file, whereever you put it)
#2) Click on Options->Preferences

#3) Click on Network Options and Under Global maximum upload rate.

If you have an insanely great internet connection, leave it as 0 or as high as 50-80.
If you have a decent cable/dsl connection, set it at 20.
If you have a cable/dsl connection that you're sharing then set it to 10.
If you have dial up or something pretty slow, set it to 5.

Why not set it to 1? Because the lower you set that number (with the exception of 0 which is actually the HIGHEST) the slower your download will be too. Bittorrent rewards people who set it higher.

That's it. Now some trouble shooting...

Why did it go to like 90% and then stop?
Because there's probably no seeder. That means no one that's downloading that exact thing through bittorrent has the whole file. Yes, that sucks and that's a big problem with bittorrent. It requires a person with the whole file to be also connected.

It's not downloading at all!

Two causes...
1) All the people connected to it are behind firewalls. If both people are behind firewalls, then you can't connect to each other. People who are not behind a firewall can connect to people behind firewalls and vice versa but two firewalled people cannot. Chances are though that at least ONE person connected is not behind a firewall and everything is dandy.

2) Someone is blocking BitTorrent. Some schools and some locations do this. If this is the case and that someone isn't you, then you're out of luck. You can't use bittorrent.

When I'm using bittorrent, it really slows my network connection down!
You're probably using all of your upload band width. That's why I said you'll want to cap your upload speed. See that section labeled CAPPING YOUR UPLOAD SPEED? Read it. If you did that already and it's still slow, lower that number.

!

Egads! I've been beaten to the punch! Oh well, nice find Coolpup.

::EDIT::
Does it only support uTorrent then? We should make a BT program list or something in that case.

hmr...i have no idea about the uTorrent. I just know how to copy and paste. ^_^;;

No need to make a list of BitTorrent clients. It has already been done a lot better and a lot more compleatly than we could ever hope to do. Bow to the Wiki...

General BitTorrent Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

List of BitTorrent Clients
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BitTorrent_clients

Comparison Chart of BitTorrent Clients
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...orrent_clients


A good place to start, but I still had to try 5 or so clients before I decided on one to stick with. Different clients offer different levels of coustomization, network control, visual representations, and control over how the file downloads. Also, some clients take up more RAM and CPU time than others (the Java beast Azureus for example, although it is my favorite).

PLEASE SEE THE EDIT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST

Also, something should be said about port forwarding (some call it Pin Holes or Virtual Server I think). I never did this myself, but I'm going to try to make a breif explination of it, as it is supposed to be night and day for downloading with a router. Note that if you have UPnP enabled by your BT program, then this is supposed to be more or less done for you, providing that your router both supports and has UPnP enabled.

OK, if there are multiple computers in the place, chances are that all of them hook up to a router, and that then goes to the modem. Well then it helps to have the router know exactly where your BitTorrent data is supposed to go (your computer). I could attempt to dive into a technical explination, but I'll avoid that, and just say that when data comes in from the internet and has a certian number attached to it, it helps for the router to know what to do with that number right away. So the basic idea is to assign the port numbers that BT uses to your computer's IP address in the router configuration.

So what ports does BT use? Well, the default is supposed to be ports 6881-6999 (you can change this in the options of every BT program I have seen). Some insist that this should be changed to a higher number range (like 55,000 to something, I don't remember) because ISPs block BT ports, but I will leave that up to anyone trying this to research and decide that for themselves. I will write this based on the default ports.

OK. First thing that has to be done is for you to log into your router to change the settings. It will be a good idea for you to have the manual for the router handy, as somethings may be different for different routers (although I will be very general, so it shouldn't matter).

---------------------------------------------------------------------

To log into the router and perform the setting change, go to a web browser and type in http://<your router's gateway IP address>/ (I believe that it is usually 192.168.1.1 but refer to your manual or how you set it up).

You will probably be asked for a user name and password... so type them in. If you never entered one before, then refer to your manual for how to get in (a good thing to try would be to leave the user feild blank and enter 'admin' without the quotes for the password).

Now here is where you really need the manual. You want to perform the port forwarding task. Find that in the setup program before you.

The data you want to enter is for the ports 6881-6999 to be forwarded to your computer. So in the Port Range feild, enter 6881-6999. Make sure that this is for both TCP and UDP (checkboxes maybe). Then enter your IP address in the proper feild (if you don't know your IP address, go to start, run, type 'cmd', type 'ipconfig', and it will tell you your IP address).

Save the changes and you should be set.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

An alternate method that I have read about is to use Port Triggering. This would require you to set ports 6881-6999 to be forwarded to whatever activates the trigger port of 6881. This should also require that your BT program not randomize the port access (I think). Would be well worth looking into if you want multiple computers on the network to use BT (probably if you don't have a static IP as well).

One final thing is that Windows XP SP2 has a TCP port limiter built in to control the spread of viruses. This can hurt your P2P program's speed in downloading. There is a patch available to change this, but I won't recomend it, nor will I recomend against it. Do what you want. Here is a information page about it.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10387


If anyone can add to this, fix it (if need be), etc. then please do (or PM me with what needs to be fixed). I have never actually done this, but I know that it is important in many cases. I only know what I have read, and what my friends have described to me. I hope that this information is right and that it helps some people out.


-----------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT

I just found this page about port forwarding. If you have trouble, go here. The information is extensive and impressive. It should help greatly. In fact, ignore my guide compleatly, and just go here.

http://www.portforward.com/