New Guide: Transmission BitTorrent Seedbox

docs/guides/file_sharing/transmission_daemon.md

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+---
+title: Transmission BitTorrent Seedbox
+author: Neel Chauhan
+contributors:
+tested_with: 9.4
+tags:
+  - file transfer
+---
+# Transmission BitTorrent Seedbox
+
+## Introduction
+
+BitTorrent needs no introduction at this point but if you're unaware, BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. BitTorrent relies on multiple peers sededing (uploading) the requested file to you but you also seed back to future downloaders.
+
+Transmission is an popular open source BitTorrent client which has multiple frontends and backends. We will be installing the headless "daemon" backend.
+
+In today's mobile-centric world, it makes more sense to run Transmission as a headless server than directly on a laptop or even a desktop. This way we can seed files 24/7 while not consuming battery life on a mobile device if used for downloading.
+
+## Installation
+
+To install Transmission we first need to install EPEL:
+
+```bash
+dnf install -y epel-release
+```
+
+Then we will install Transmission:
+
+```bash
+dnf install -y transmission
+```
+
+## First Setup
+
+Unlike most Linux daemons Transmision sets up the configuration upon first startup. Let's start up and stop Transmission:
+
+```bash
+systemctl start transmission-daemon
+systemctl stop transmission-daemon
+```
+
+After these steps, we will have a configuration file. You will need to stop Transmission as you cannot edit the configuration file while Transmission is running.
+
+## Configuration
+
+Now, we will configure Transmission:
+
+```bash
+cd /var/lib/transmission/.config/transmission-daemon
+vi settings.json
+```
+
+Navigate down to the `"peer-port"` JSON entry and if desired, replace the stock port with the desired port:
+
+```bash
+    "peer-port": 51413,
+```
+
+I'll change it to `12345`:
+
+```bash
+    "peer-port": 12345,
+```
+
+Subsequently, navigate to the `"rpc-password"` JSON entry and change the password:
+
+```bash
+    "rpc-password": "{9cfaaade11d56c8e82bfc23b696fa373fb20c10e4U2NXY3.",
+```
+
+Enter your plaintext password here. If you are worried about security, fortunately Transmission will encrypt the password upon the next restart
+
+If you want to allow access from other IP addresses, navigagte to the `"rpc-whitelist"` entry:
+
+```bash
+    "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,::1",
+```
+
+For instance if you want to allow access to your desktop on IP address `192.168.1.100` we can add it to the comma separated value:
+
+```bash
+    "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,::1,192.168.1.100",
+```
+
+Alternatively if you don't desire an IP whitelist we can disable it by setting `"rpc-whitelist-enable"` to `false`:
+
+```bash
+    "rpc-whitelist-enabled": false,
+```
+
+When you're done configuring we will start and enable Transmission:
+
+```bash
+systemctl enable --now transmission-daemon
+```
+
+## Firewall and Network Configuration
+
+Subsequently, we will need to allow the respective ports `12345` (for BitTorrent) and `9091` (for Transmission's control panel) in our firewall:
+
+```bash
+firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=12345/tcp
+firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=9091/tcp
+firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent
+```
+
+If you are not behind a NAT-PMP or uPNP-enabled router or connected without NAT we will need to forward the BitTorrent port (`12345` in our example). Each router is different but as an example on the author's MikroTik router:
+
+```bash
+/ip firewall nat add action=dst-nat chain=dstnat dst-port=12345 in-interface=ether1 protocol=tcp to-addresses=SERVER_IP to-ports=12345
+```
+
+Replace `SERVER_IP` with the IP address of the server running Transmission.
+
+## Testing Transmission
+
+Navigate to the IP address running our Transmission server. As an example we can download the torrent of a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu:
+
+![Our Transmission downloading Ubuntu](../images/transmission.png)
+
+## Conclusion
+
+BitTorrent was designed in the early 2000s when most people connected to the internet via a desktop PC. And while it's impractical to run BitTorrent on a laptop or phone it's perfect to run it on a headless server via Transmission. This way we can seed files 24/7 and yet our downloads will always be available to us.