Create your own seedbox with Transmission torrent client

Want a small seedbox on your server ? It’s really not complicated, thanks to Transmission.

First step, install it using your OS package manager

apt-get install transmission-daemon

Then we need to stop the deamon to configure it.

/etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop

To edit the configuration file (vi FTW):

vi /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

Here is a list of important values to change. You can find documentation about the configuration file there.

/* Username and password so only you can access the web interface */
"rpc-username": "myUsername",
/* You can enter the password here, it will be hashed on the first login */
"rpc-password": "my5up3r$C0mplic47edPa$$",
/* If you don't want login/pass protection, set that to false */
"rpc-authentification-required": true,
/* If you want to find your files easily, better change this one */
"download-dir": "/path/to/the/dir",
/* You might want to change this one also */
"incomplete-dir": "/path/to/the/dir",
/* Authorize access only to known connections
 * You can set that to false, especially if you have dynamic IP address
 */
"rpc-whitelist-enabled": true,
/* Add your IP address here if you set previous param to true */
"rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,192.168.1.1",
/* -- ports setup -- */
/* access to the web interface */
"rpc-port": 8353,
/* peer port */
/* set fixed port */
"peer-port": 6401,
/* or set a range */
"peer-port-random-high": 6411,
"peer-port-random-low": 6401,
"peer-port-random-on-start": true,

Configure the firewall so we can actually access the web interface and send/receive packets. Be sure to set it up regarding the ports you entered in your configuration file.

sudo iptables -t filter -A OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 8353 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -t filter -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8353 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -t filter -A OUTPUT -p tcp --dport 6401:6411 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -t filter -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 6401:6411 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -t filter -A OUTPUT -m owner --gid-owner debian-transmission -j ACCEPT

Now, time to start the daemon again

/etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start

To access transmission web interface, use your server IP address

http://1.2.3.4:8353/transmission

And you’re done ! Easy, isn’t it ?