File Torrent
A TORRENT file is a file that BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing programs use to download content, such as videos, music, games, or documents, over the Internet. It contains metadata that describes the to-be-downloaded content and tells BitTorrent where to download the content from. For example, TORRENT files specify the name, file size, and folder structure of to-be-downloaded content.
File torrent
Torrenting is the act of retrieving or sending content using the BitTorrent network. To download content using BitTorrent, users must first retrieve or create an associated TORRENT file. When the user opens the file in BitTorrent, BitTorrent begins downloading the content the file points to.
BitTorrent splits downloads among multiple nodes, retrieving pieces of each downloaded file from separate computers and assembling the pieces during the download process. This speeds up the download process. When you open a TORRENT file and begin a download, your computer may be used to send pieces of the file(s) you are downloading to other users downloading the same file(s).
Not inherently. TORRENT files and the BitTorrent network can be used to retrieve any type of content, including legal content. However, many users use TORRENT files to download copyrighted material, such as TV shows, music, and video games. Using a TORRENT file to download copyrighted material is illegal.
You can open a TORRENT file and use it to download its associated content in a variety of torrenting applications, including BitTorrent (Windows, Mac), uTorrent (Windows, Mac, Android), FreeDownloadManager (cross-platform), and Vuze (cross-platform).
The FileInfo.com team has independently researched the BitTorrent file format and Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android apps listed on this page. Our goal is 100% accuracy and we only publish information about file types that we have verified.
In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file or meta-info file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms.[1] A torrent file does not contain the content to be distributed; it only contains information about those files, such as their names, folder structure, sizes, and cryptographic hash values for verifying file integrity. Torrent files are normally named with the extension ".torrent".
A torrent file acts like a table of contents (index) that allows computers to find information through the use of a BitTorrent client. With the help of a torrent file, one can download small parts of the original file from computers that have already downloaded it. These "peers" allow for downloading of the file in addition to, or in place of, the primary server.
The BitTorrent system has been created to ease the load on central servers, as instead of having individual clients fetch files from the server, BitTorrent can crowd-source the bandwidth needed for the file transfer and reduce the time needed to download large files. Many free/freeware programs and operating systems, such as the various Linux distributions offer a torrent download option for users seeking the aforementioned benefits. Other large downloads, such as media files, are often torrented as well.
Typically, Internet access is asymmetrical, supporting greater download speeds than upload speeds, limiting the bandwidth of each download, and sometimes enforcing bandwidth caps and periods where systems are not accessible. This creates inefficiency when many people want to obtain the same set of files from a single source; the source must always be online and must have massive outbound bandwidth. The BitTorrent protocol addresses this by decentralizing the distribution, leveraging the ability of people to network "peer-to-peer", among themselves.
Each file to be distributed is divided into small information chunks called pieces. Downloading peers achieve high download speeds by requesting multiple pieces from different computers simultaneously in the swarm. Once obtained, these pieces are usually immediately made available for download by others in the swarm. In this way, the burden on the network is spread among the downloaders, rather than concentrating at a central distribution hub or cluster. As long as all the pieces are available, peers (downloaders and uploaders) can come and go; no one peer needs to have all the chunks or to even stay connected to the swarm in order for distribution to continue among the other peers.
A small torrent file is created to represent a file or folder to be shared. The torrent file acts as the key to initiating downloading of the actual content. Someone interested in receiving the shared file or folder first obtains the corresponding torrent file, either by directly downloading it or by using a magnet link. The user then opens that file in a BitTorrent client, which automates the rest of the process. In order to learn the internet locations of peers who may be sharing pieces, the client connects to the trackers named in the torrent file, and/or achieves a similar result through the use of distributed hash tables. Then the client connects directly to the peers in order to request pieces and otherwise participate in a swarm. The client may also report progress to trackers, to help the tracker with its peer recommendations.
A torrent is uniquely identified by an infohash, a SHA-1 hash calculated over the contents of the info dictionary in bencode form. Changes to other portions of the torrent does not affect the hash. This hash is used to identify the torrent to other peers via DHT and to the tracker. It is also used in magnet links.
The new format uses SHA-256 in both the piece-hashing and the infohash, replacing the broken SHA-1 hash. The "btmh" magnet link would contain the full 32-byte hash, while communication with trackers and on the DHT uses the 20-byte truncated version to fit into the old message structure.[2] It is possible to construct a torrent file with only updated new fields for a "v2" torrent, or with both the old and new fields for a "hybrid" format. However, as a torrent would have different infohashes in v1 and v2 networks, two swarms would form, requiring special handling by the client to merge the two. In addition, as v2 adds keys to info, there can be no [3]
A core feature of the new format is its application of merkle trees, allowing for 16KiB blocks of a piece to be individually verified and re-downloaded. Each file now always occupy whole piece sizes and have an independent merkle root hash, so that it's possible to find duplicate files across unrelated torrent files of any piece length. The file size is not reduced, but the info dictionary required for magnet links are (only in v2-only torrents).[3]
A torrent file can also contain additional metadata defined in extensions to the BitTorrent specification.[4] These are known as "BitTorrent Enhancement Proposals." Examples of such proposals include metadata for stating who created the torrent, and when.
The specification recommends that nodes "should be set to the K closest nodes in the torrent generating client's routing table. Alternatively, the key could be set to a known good node such as one operated by the person generating the torrent."
In BEP-0017, a new key, httpseeds, is placed in the top-most list (i.e., with announce and info). This key's value is a list of web addresses where torrent data can be retrieved. Special server support is required. It remains at Draft status.
Private torrents are to be used with a private tracker. Such a tracker restricts access to torrents it tracks by checking the peer's IP, refusing to provide a peer list if the IP is unknown. The peer itself is usually registered to the tracker via a gated online community; the private tracker typically also keep statistics of data transfer for use in the community.
Decentralized methods like DHT, PeX, LSD are disabled to maintain the centralized control. A private torrent can be manually edited to remove the private flag, but doing so will change the info-hash (deterministically), forming a separate "swarm" of peers. On the other hand, changing the tracker list will not change the hash. The flag does not offer true privacy, instead operating as a gentlemen's agreement.
BEP-0030[10] extends BitTorrent to support Merkle trees (originally implemented in Tribler). The purpose is to reduce the file size of torrent files, which reduces the burden on those that serve torrent files.
The only complicated part of this code is handling multi-file torrents because a single torrent piece can span more than one file (internally BitTorrent treats multi-file downloads as a single contiguous file). I'm using the generator function pieces_generator() to abstract that away.
There are several other ways to get Ubuntu including torrents, which can potentially mean a quicker download, our network installer for older systems and special configurations and links to our regional mirrors for our older (and newer) releases. If you don't specifically require any of these installers, we recommend using our standard downloads.
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer download network that sometimes enables higher download speeds and more reliable downloads of large files. You need a BitTorrent client on your computer to enable this download method.
The link to the file in ScholarsArchive@OSU is actually a link to the torrent file for the dataset. This torrent file can be loaded to a torrent client, at which point the process of retrieving and reconstructing the dataset will commence. Any BitTorrent client should allow you to download the dataset you seek from ScholarsArchive@OSU. If you do not already have a client, our current recommendation is to use qBittorrent.
You can control your torrent download through the qBittorrent interface; for example, select your destination folder before the download begins, choose only certain files to be download from a torrent (all the files from a torrent will be downloaded by default), and pause and resume torrents. 041b061a72