I know how to make a torrent that is hosted from a home computer, in which I am using Pirate Bay as a public tracker, but I was wondering if I could use my webserver to host the file instead. Can this be done and if so how do I do it?
Let me clarify a little bit so that you know exactly what I mean. I have a 66 MB music file on my shared webserver that I have from a web hosting company. For my website I have access to cpanel, but I don’t really have access to the server’s file system per say because I don’t own the server, but rather I have a shared hosting account. Can you create a torrent when all you have is the URL of the file? Or does my webserver have to actually be running Bit Comet? Feel free to explain a little more about how torrents work because I am sure I am missing something, also I am interested in learning how the actually process works (i.e. tracker, hosting ect.)
The reason why I would rather use my webserver is because I have much bigger pipe (100mbit) and I wouldn’t have to leave my home computer on all the time.
For what you want, no, I’m afraid it won’t work. Bittorrent doesn’t use a web server for torrent transfers. These are done individually, from client to client with no server involved at all.
The tracker, now, the tracker uses a web server as an interface, but that has nothing to do with the actual uploads or downloads.
What you’d need is basically shell access to some machine (whether it’s running a web server is irrelevant) in the hosting center, to install a bittorrent client onto. They’re unlikely to give you that. If it’s not a fully legal torrent of material you own, then they’re extremely unlikely to give you that and probably forbid it in their TOS.
Thanks both of you. Yes it makes sense I would need some kind of Bit torrent client running on my webserver in order to do what I want. I don’t have a dedicated server, so it is really up to my hosting company whether or not they want to install a Bit Torrent client.