Running Azureus on a Remote Linux Box
This is a quick tutorial to download, install, and run Azureus remotely on a Linux machine. The purpose for this is to remotely que downloads on your Linux box without having to be at your box and then be able to logout of your box and keep azureus running in the background. It’s useful to be able to add/remove torrents remotely as well as check on each torrents status.
To start off you’ll want to make sure you have the latest version of Java installed on your box which can be found here, I installed the JRE version. You may have to compile java and put it’s location in your environment path variable. This may be located in your .{csh,bash,…}rc file depending on which shell you’ll be running azureus under.
Next you’ll need to download the Java version of Azureus which can be found at SourceForge’s Azureus - Bittorrent Client. You’ll want to pick the appropriate file which will probably be Azureus_x.x.x.x_linux.tar.bz2 which you’ll have to untar using the “tar -jxvf filename’ command.
Next you’ll need to grab 2 more files, placing them in the root azureus directory, to get the client to run without an XWindows session (from the command line). The most current of the two files, log4j.jar and commons-cli.jar, can be located here.
Next you’ll want to run azureus to make sure everythings working fine. You’ll do this by using the “java -jar {directory location}/Azureus2.jar –ui=console” command. Or just “java -jar Azureus2.jar –ui=console” if your in the azureus directory. I edited my .alias file to alias the name azcon to start it up.
Now you have the ability to run azureus from the command line. Now all you need to do is have a means of remotely accessing Azureus. I recommend running a SSH server on the computer you’ll want to have Azureus running on.
Once you’ve remotely connected to the box you can start up azureus with the command:
java -jar Azureus2.jar –ui=console
useful commands for Azureus console:
add /path/to/file.torrent — for adding torrent files
show torrents — shows the status for all torrents being handled by azureus
remove (# of torrent) — removes a torrent, requires looking at show torrents to find number
If you want to run the job and sign out you’ll want to run azureus as a screen job. This can be done with the command:
screen java -jar Azureus2.jar –ui=console
Screen may need some tweaking to get it to work and there have been a few known issues with java and screen. You may want to start up the console session before trying to remote login so you won’t need to use screen.
Adding torrents can be tricky. I’d suggest using WinSCP or SCP if your on a linux machine to copy your torrent files to your computer remotely. Or just run an FTP server on your remote machine.
And there you have it. You’ll now be able to remotely login on your box from where ever you’re at and feel proud knowing that if you wanted to you could manage torrents for Azureus remotely.