Transmission configuration

There are several implementations of the bittorrent peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. Transmission is only one of them. After installation (opkg install transmission-daemon) there should be a config file in the uci directory.

A few more details about configuration file (/etc/config/transmission) can be found here.

You'll probably need to set up USB support and format your drives for storage first, see the articles here and here.

Proxy support was deprecated on version 1.4 and there is no plan to implement it ^{1) 2)}. You can use OpenVPN as a global solution.

opkg update
opkg install transmission-daemon
opkg install transmission-cli
opkg install transmission-web
opkg install transmission-remote
opkg install luci-app-transmission

To enable Transmission:

uci set transmission.@transmission[0].enabled="1"
uci commit transmission
/etc/init.d/transmission restart

It is recommended to install luci-app-transmission to facilitate the configuration via LuCi web interface:

opkg install luci-app-transmission

• Web user interface: if you wish to use the web server, besides installing the package (see above), you might need to whitelist your IP address (if it is not in 192.168.1.0/24) via option rpc_whitelist '127.0.0.1,192.168.1.*,your_ip_address' in the transmission configuration. By default, the server listens on port 9091, eg: http://192.168.1.1:9091. See Web Interface
  

• Desktop remote interface: to control transmission remotely via RPC, install Transmission Remote GUI on your desktop and set it up just like the webserver above. The RPC interface uses the same port as the web interface.
  

To access to all the config options edit the file /etc/config/transmission.

You'll probably want to change the config_dir, download_dir, and incomplete_dir variables to point to locations on external storage.

config transmission
        option enable 1
        option config_dir '/etc/transmission'
        option alt_speed_down 50
        option alt_speed_enabled false
        option alt_speed_time_begin  540
        option alt_speed_time_day 127
        option alt_speed_time_enabled false
        option alt_speed_time_end 1020
        option alt_speed_up 50
        option bind_address_ipv4 '0.0.0.0'
        option bind_address_ipv6 '::'
        option blocklist_enabled false
        option dht_enabled true
        option download_dir '/mnt/sda4/'
        option encryption 1
        option incomplete_dir '/mnt/sda4/incomplete'
        option incomplete_dir_enabled false
        option lazy_bitfield_enabled true
        option lpd_enabled false
        option message_level 2
        option open_file_limit 32
        option peer_limit_global 240
        option peer_limit_per_torrent 60
        option peer_port 51413
        option peer_port_random_high 65535
        option peer_port_random_low 49152
        option peer_port_random_on_start false
        option peer_socket_tos 0
        option pex_enabled true
        option port_forwarding_enabled false
        option preallocation 1
        option ratio_limit 2.0000
        option ratio_limit_enabled false
        option rename_partial_files true
        option rpc_authentication_required false
        option rpc_bind_address '0.0.0.0'
        option rpc_enabled true
        option rpc_password ''
        option rpc_port 9091
        option rpc_username ''
        option rpc_whitelist '127.0.0.1,192.168.1.*'
        option rpc_whitelist_enabled true
        option script_torrent_done_enabled false
        option script_torrent_done_filename ''
        option speed_limit_down 100
        option speed_limit_down_enabled false
        option speed_limit_up 40
        option speed_limit_up_enabled true
        option start_added_torrents false
        option trash_original_torrent_files false
        option umask 18
        option upload_slots_per_torrent 14
        option watch_dir_enabled false
        option watch_dir ''

Extra details can be found here.

Reference

Install the package transmission-web:

opkg install transmission-web

To open the web interface just click on the button at the Luci configuration screen:

You can use the default web interface, but it is minimalist and lacks some useful functions. Fortunatelly there are alternatives for replacing the default web interface.

Transmission Web Control is a fully featured Web interface, see https://github.com/ronggang/transmission-web-control/wiki

To install this new web interface:

1. Stop the daemon:

   /etc/init.d/transmission stop

2. Install wget-ssl:

   opkg update
   opkg install wget-ssl

3. Download the install script:

   cd /tmp
   wget https://github.com/ronggang/transmission-web-control/raw/master/release/install-tr-control.sh --no-check-certificate

4. Execute the install script:

   chmod +x /tmp/install-tr-control.sh
   sh /tmp/install-tr-control.sh

5. A menu is shown, choose 1:

           Welcome to the Transmission Web Control Installation Script.
           Official help documentation: https://github.com/ronggang/transmission-web-control/wiki 
           Installation script version: 1.2.3
   
           1. Install the latest release.
           2. Install the specified version.
           3. Revert to the official UI.
           4. Re-download the installation script.
           5. Check if Transmission is started.
           6. Input the Transmission Web directory.
           9. Installing from 'master' Repository.
           ===================
           0. Exit the installation;
   
           Please enter the corresponding number: 1

6. Start the daemon:

   /etc/init.d/transmission start

7. Done, now you can open the web interface, e.g: http://192.168.1.1:9091/transmission/web/

This is the aspect of the new web interface:

• Transmission performs much better when swap is mounted.

• # settings.json is created with root permissions by default. It can cause an error:
  # Error: Unable to save resume file: No such file or directory
  # root     root          1818 Dec 27 21:00 settings.json
   
  # this command can help:
  chown transmission:transmission settings.json
   
  #Also you can prevent this error if you set correct permissions for the download directory... Make sure that transmission is the owner of every path that is set in /etc/config/transmission 
  chown -R transmission:transmission /transmission/

• If you experience a network throughput drop in your device after installing Transmission, this is likely caused by the settings at /etc/sysctl.d/20-transmission.conf

  # Transmission requests large buffers by default
  net.core.rmem_max = 4194304
  net.core.wmem_max = 1048576
   
  # Some firewalls block SYN packets that are too small
  net.ipv4.tcp_adv_win_scale = 4

  Adjust these parameters or just delete this file and reboot OpenWrt.

A video demonstration of how Transmission 2.84 can be installed on OpenWrt 14.07 Barrier Breaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R1Kcpy4pj4 (video removed)

A script (GitHub oilervoss) for adding alternative trackers to the selected torrents filtered by its name or number. The public trackers are retrieved from a dynamical list (ngosang). If the list is offline, it will use a static one.

# Show current Torrents
./addtracker
 
# Add public trackers to the Torrents of numbers $somenumber and $othernumber
./addtracker $somenumber $othernumber
 
# Add public trackers to the Torrents found with $anyword or $otherword in the name (case insensitive)
./addtracker $anyword $otherword
 
# Add public trackers to all torrents
./addtracker .