Gazelle Rejuvenates the BitTorrent Tracker Community
Written by Ben Jones on August 28, 2008Some months back, Project Gazelle was launched. It was an attempt to build a new and improved BitTorrent tracker script. The ultimate goal is to produce a new framework for private torrent sites, faster than the common TB source, while being more secure from a code point of view, easier to modify, and more flexible.
TorrentFreak covered Gazelle at various points along its development. From inception, through beta testing, to its public début on What.cd, we’ve followed the development and progress. That progress has now lead to what could arguably be the most important day in any product’s lifecycle , initial release day.
Yes, all those nay-sayers and early fans that have populated the comment sections of our previous stories on Gazelle can finally prove the exploits and bad coding that they’ve been claiming, as the first public release candidate of the script is now available for download.
Reactions from those that have given the site a try, have been mostly positive. The main negative comments stem from the fact it’s not an intuitive install. Part of that comes from the memory caching software , memcached , which gives the project its ‘blazing speed’. Also, right now the system uses XBTT as a tracker, but we’re told that it will have its own (multithreaded) tracker ready for later versions, codenamed ‘Ocelot’.
Also, as things stand, while they hoped for around a doubling of capacity over the older TBsource script, in practice it’s become more like double that, meaning a 10,000 user site under TBSource can probably handle 40,000 without any major difference in site response or system load. Project head WhatMan told TorrentFreak: “We out-shot our initial projections by a very wide margin.”
Interest in Project Gazelle has been fairly strong, and at least half a dozen sites are now running the new script. Perhaps more interestingly, though, is that Gazelle isn’t JUST a torrent site. Due to its modular nature, it can be used for regular sites as well. It’s a bit like a content management system in that respect, and perhaps our earlier comparison to Diferior wasn’t all that far from the mark.
If you’re interested in getting your hands on the Gazelle code, then just head over to the project site and follow the instructions. The whole kit-and-caboodle is released under a modified version of the GPL, so have fun.
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39 Responses
aight
Could always do with a few more torrent sites rather than just directories that seem to be popping up everywhere.
If you do use the software and it works for you, perhaps you could leave a link here (if its not a totally private site of course) so people can check it out… plus your opinions..am curious, what say guys?
I wonder how many sites will bother to make the jump, after years of modification to the original code on which they run.
waffles needs it
whats with all the weird website names lately? gazelle?
and what about this one?
http://crazynigger.com/
wtf, well i guess torrents proxies really keep the web interesting…
^^ you make no sense bud.
English plz.
Why is this news?
UM this is just a front end why?
cause i see the xbtt which is the tracker
so what htese guys have done is USE a tracker that already exists and modify it maybe a little and slap on a front end to make it look differant
THIS IS NOT A NEW TRACKER
the below is the tracker:
and that code can and was designed to handle 150-250,000 userbase
and some very large private sites use it, demonoid also uses it as a more public exmaple.
http://svn.what.cd/repos/project_gazelle/trunk/xbtt.tar.gz
@ #3 why does waffles need it?? i hope they dont use it… i like it the way it is
this is a quote from waffles admin forums post anyways:
“Like gazelle, we have also recoded the entire site ourselves… it’s just not open source, and not named after an antelope.”
cool cool, so glad to read good news!
quote from chronoss2008
“UM this is just a front end why?
cause i see the xbtt which is the tracker
so what htese guys have done is USE a tracker that already exists and modify it maybe a little and slap on a front end to make it look differant
THIS IS NOT A NEW TRACKER”
did this bit mean anything to you?
“Also, right now the system uses XBTT as a tracker, but we’re told that it will have its own (multithreaded) tracker ready for later versions, codenamed ‘Ocelot’.”
Gazelle is amazing, and I really wish Dimeadozen.org would adopt it.
who is ben jones and why is he sucking what.cd dick?
waffles admins have said it sucks at security lol so i would stay away from it.
waffles admins dont know shit which is why they’re loosing to what.cd and haven’t rolled out a new feature in 4 months?
you mean like the shop they rolled out, and points… those new features?
@ #8
If you really want to get all nitty gritty, Gazelle is an Indexer, not a Tracker. What the What admins did is right a completely new codebase that makes launched a reliable, secure and feature complete torrent site a breeze compared to the aging TBSource. That’s why this is useful in the world of torrents—at least for people interested in running a major site of their own.
I’ve worked with TB Source, and believe me, it’s a fucking pain to do anything with.
@15:
i think he means worthwhile, useful features.
…you mean like buying invites, accounts, and freeleech? Sound like a sturdy plan for a solid future/userbase right there…
OMG BICYCLE!! 1000000 POINTS! GREAT SITE FEATURE.
@5:
you’re retarded bud. gazelle isn’t a site, obviously you can’t read. it’s a TRACKER for what.cd and probably others soon.
nothing to do with anything you said you stupid fuck
Because we ALL know how wise the waffles admins are. It’s easy to say how bad someone elses script is, especially when your own is just as bad…
Props to What.CD for the effort, what a great site and a great move for the bittorrent community at large :)
Gazelle took about 10 times longer than they promised, and, from my experience with navigating What, it’s seems like it has lots of extraneous bells and whistles, but is missing core components (probably to increase speed) and, to me, seems less intuitive than the frequently ragged on TBSource.
In addition, it was made very clear from the very beginning that Gazelle was being written ‘completely from scratch,’ so it’s use of XBTT is a little disheartening.
That being said, What (and Waffles) stepped up and masterfully filled the massive void left by Oink. What specifically gets massive props for recognizing phenomenal software (uTorrent 1.6.1) and not abandoning it to a lot of hype and false promises.
In other words, What has plenty to be proud of, just not Gazelle.
@13 Ben Jones wrote the article you muppet
my asshole is loose
Biggest waste of time evar!
there install script is broken
manually adding the sql file to the db results in xbt bitching
their included xbt.tar.gz will not install and once installed does not offer a destination in which files are installed to thus making the user look around for the config file which dosent exist in a place that the executable can locate(and they dont mention anywhere where to find the destination that the executable is looking at
there is no documentation on how to install once you are configured and maked
this is a utter and total peice of shit and should be avoided at all cost
tbdev was easiser to install then this piece of cockshit!
so to reply again this is NOT a new tracker and that UNTIL they use the ocelot any claim that it is a new tracker is false.
and xbtt is great for larger sites ,but does have a range of security issues, ( i know i have even found a one pixel by one pixel image link to a banned IP thats BAD real bad in base code of the mostly used for it front end torrent trader )
this is why 90% of sites never last long and get nuked , dossed or sued into going by by.
opensource everything to protect us, or its useless is the motto.
@26, the article mentions that the install sucks.
If you can’t get around relatively minor install difficulties, you don’t know enough to run a secure site.
Considering PHP version 6 will include APC (Alternative PHP cache) as default, it seems strange they went with MEMCACHE, I’m not against MEMCACHE at all, it has it place. Mainly on load balanced sites.
I just think APC would be a nice addition to a later version. A modular site could easily use both. (Config option)
Looking at the code, I can’t see how it will be any easier to add modifications. Adding new pages is one thing, but editing current ones is another. Once you add them mods, you’ll be left with the same issue you have with TB-Source, a lot of work fixing bugs.
Good effort, not living up to all the hype for me. Its also not 100% as modular as I would have liked.
those of us who arent involved in the technical side of the tracker and the code…users of what.cd, me included, have seen a giant improvement in functionality, ease of use, number of features, customization and the general speed of the site compared to what it was before gazelle. we all love it.
@26
Ah yes, I guess it’s an RC for no apparent reason at all.
*dumbass*
“We would like to remind everyone that this is not the final 1.0 release - it is just the first release candidate. There are a number of changes that are on the list of things to be changed before 1.0. The most significant of these is the tracker - currently, gazelle uses xbtt as its tracker backend. We’re in the final stages of coding a new tracker from scratch, dubbed “ocelot”. Once ocelot is finished, there will be some modifications to the database schema.”
First of all, it’s crazy how bad people behave here. Most of the comments here either make absolutely clear that the poster has no clue (besides of how to use a lot of causewords) or are just plain bashing of what they don’t like. Very sad.
Back on topic. Gazelle is amazing. If you don’t like it then don’t use it. But I’m pretty sure that most new torrentsites will gladly use it. This is not about waffles vs. what, they’re both great sites, but soon you’ll find gazelle on various other sites too.
The only thing which I don’t really understand is why they don’t use Opentracker as the tracker, afaik it’s the fastest tracker to date (TPB uses it, and if theres a huge tracker then it’s TPB).
Opentracker’s source code is less than ideally build for modification and doesn’t have a working passkey modification; I also am not completely sure on the threaded status of Opentracker, but Ocelot will be threaded (or so we’re told).
As far as people who are hating because Gazelle ‘didn’t live up to the hype’ consider the fact that it was written for developers, by developers and was not intended to work-just-like-you-want-it-to out of the box like SMF or something similar. It’s a foundation to build a tracker on top of, not a completely working tracker out of the box. If you can’t handle installing it and XBTT, you obviously don’t have the knowledge and expertise to code and run a tracker and we’re better off without your efforts as a community; recruit someone who does know what they’re doing. It is somewhat modular, in the source layout, but it’s not completely modular (I don’t remember anyone ever saying it was) and I can’t think of a better way to structure the code, for the goals that they aimed for.
That said, there are some glaring faults with Gazelle. It’s not a tracker-foundation as much as it should be, it’s not a vanilla source code set, it’s what.cd source and it was developed as what.cd source and not as a proper FOSS project. Their code quality is vastly inconsistent, ranging from nearly tbdev quality nonsense to on the verge of utter brilliance, which makes it a pain in the ass to modify particular things or to familiarize yourself with their source. They say that they had a formatting scheme, and yet their source code does not follow one much at all. Everything is cached to the point of ridiculousness, and rather than cache things transparently when they were cached, it seems that everything was cached first and then transparency added as an after-thought. The initial weeks of gazelle launch at what.cd are a testament to that.
There’s a list of complaints about the code a mile long, but the point is that it’s a billion times better than tbdev is or ever will be, it has a sane db schema and is fast as shit, with or without the caching. I haven’t seen a good argument as to why it’s unacceptable, other than just general hate.
Gazelle is the future of the private tracker community, like it or leave it. It’s not perfect, but then again, we all need something to strive for.
“As far as people who are hating because Gazelle ‘didn’t live up to the hype’ consider the fact that it was written for developers, by developers and was not intended to work-just-like-you-want-it-to out of the box like SMF or something similar.”
So, if you don’t like Gazelle your a n00b?
Maybe the people who think Gazelle is great are the n00bs. I think most people who are disappointed were hoping for PHP5 OOP based and fully commented code. What we have seen is as bad as TBdev, its only real advantage is built in caching, but versions of TBSource / TBdev exist with that support already.
Its also annoying to read the gazelle is so fast comments, TBSource / TBdev runs a PHP tracker by default. Gazelle is at this moment in time, just a front end for XBTT. Its XBTT that provides the major speed boost, so can we give credit were credits due.
Sure TBSource is old, but it does not mean we should accept Gazelle is a major improvement, because its not.
“Its also annoying to read the gazelle is so fast comments, TBSource / TBdev runs a PHP tracker by default. Gazelle is at this moment in time, just a front end for XBTT. Its XBTT that provides the major speed boost, so can we give credit were credits due”
The speed increases and “Gazelle is so fast” comments being thrown around are all based on comparisons between a site running TBsource and XBTT against a site running Gazelle and XBTT, so any mention of XBTT’s performance compared to a PHP tracker seems out of place.
No sense giving the credit to XBTT when the comparison uses XBTT on both sides….
gazelle does not suck.
troll troll
where are these comparisons? who made them? I’d like to see real performance comparisons with some pretty graphs.
also, lets keep in mind that the original tbsource is not the highly modified tbdev versions that many sites run. Gazelle is likely a step up from the original tbsource.
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