Re: [Mldonkey-users] Plugin for Bittorrent ?

[Bernd Knochenhauer]

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003 07:18:34 +0100
MLdonkey <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> Yes, we had this idea. However, bittorrent is based on the interaction
> between several different scripts and an installed WEB server. I don't
> know exactly what should be put in mldonkey (which already has its
> local WEB server), the small client, or the set client + WEB server ?

Bittorrent 'servers' are called 'trackers'. Each tracker is responsible for 
tracking data of one or several files. A file, according to BT's philosophy, 
can be a single file including a directory structure or numberous files. There 
is a 1:1 mapping between a tracker and the files it is responsible for, ie. a 
tracker watches one or several files. The trackers IP adress / URL is part of a 
files' accompanying .torrent file. The tracker collects information about 
connected clients and distributes this information among the other clients it 
currently serves. Clients use this info to connect directly to each other to 
up- and download chunks of data.

In other words, no, you don't have to implement the tracker functionality if 
you're aiming to create a working BT client for mldonkey. The BT client 
consists of a number of python scripts, no additional shell-scripts or HTML 
files are needed on the client side. BT is implemented very nicely so that the 
'upload-download engine' is completely seperated from its GUI. Basically what 
would be needed is the parsing of the .torrent 'dictionary' and the 
implementation of BT's core, ie. the part that up- and downloads and talks to 
the tracker.