Similar to the web special remote, git-annex can use BitTorrent as a source for files that are added to the git-annex repository.
It supports both .torrent files, and magnet: links. When you run git
annex addurl with either of these, it will download the contents of the
torrent and add it to the git annex repository.
See using the web as a special remote for usage examples.
git-annex uses aria2 to download torrents.
If git-annex is not built using the haskell torrent library to parse
torrents, it also needs the btshowmetainfo program, from either
bittornado or the original BitTorrent client.
The bittorrent special remote is always enabled, without any manual setup being needed. Its name is "bittorrent".
notes
Currently git-annex only supports downloading content from a torrent; it cannot upload or remove content.
Multi-file torrents are supported; to handle them, git annex addurl
will add a directory containing all the files from the torrent.
It's hard to say if a torrent is healthy enough to let a file be downloaded
from it, and harder to predict if a torrent will stay healthy. So,
git-annex takes a cautious approach and when dropping a file, won't
treat this special remote as one of the required copies. It's probably
a good idea to configure git-annex to fully distrust this remote, by
running git annex untrust bittorrent
I have a multi-file torrent that has been downloaded and annexed. After reading the article about web remote, I thought
git-annex addurl --filecould be used. However, when I triedgit-annex addurl --file video/tvseries/someseries /tmp/some.torrent, I get the errorAttaching the torrent to one of the files inside failed, too, with the message:
git annex addurl file:///full/path/to/file.torrent. this has the downside of denoting a local file that may vanish or not be present at the same location in another checkout, but then again, same goes for http uris. (i'd rather like the torrent file or at least the info part thereof present in git or git-annex; adding the torrent withaddurl --rawand then using itsfile://url at least gives all the data needed to use the torrent again).annex.security.allowed-url-schemes can be configured to allow using file: urls.
However, adding a temp file as an url does not seem very useful. Seems that a much more typical bittorrent way to go would be to find or generate a magnet: url for the torrent.