How to create a torrent?

Written by Ernesto on March 23, 2006

Torrents are great, they are the best way to share large files with your friends, or even with people you don’t know at all. But surprisingly enough, not many people create torrents when they need to share something. I have “a lot of” friends who know how to download torrents, but when they need to send me their latest 200MB vacation picture collection, they ask me to “get on msn”.

It’s not that I have anything against msn (allthough the file transfer sucks), but why don’t just use BitTorrent? Especially if you want to send something to more than one person, or if you want to share high quality HDTV files, because then you can share the bandwidth.

So how do you do this? Well it’s very simple. Open your favorite BitTorrent client and do the magic trick:

file > create torrent

That’s all? Well almost. All you need to do now is put in the tracker info nad tick some boxes. This can differ somewhat from client to client but it all comes down to the same thing.
uTorrent

1. File > Create new Torrent (or CTRL + N)
2. Select the files and or directories

3. Trackers: This is probably the hard part for most people. But it’s pretty easy, just put in one of the popular public trackers. You can use one or more trackers, but in general one is enough.

Here are some good trackers you can use:

http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
http://www.torrent-downloads.to:2710/announce
http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
udp://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
http://www.sumotracker.com/announce

Put one of these in the tracker box

4. Do NOT tick the private torrent box (unless you’re using a private tracker)

5. Save the torrent and send it to your friends

Bitcomet

1. File > Create Torrent (or CTRL + M)

2. Select the files and or directories

3. Select “enable public DHT network” from the dropdown box
This way you can be your own tracker if the public tracker goes down.

4. Tracker server and DHT node list
Again, This is probably the hard part for most people. But it’s pretty easy, just put in one of the popular public trackers. You can use one or more trackers, but in general one is enough.

Here are some of the most popular trackers at the moment:

http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
http://www.torrent-downloads.to:2710/announce
http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
udp://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
http://www.sumotracker.com/announce

Put one of these in the tracker box

5. Save the torrent and send it to your friends

Azureus

1. File > New Torrent (or CTRL + N)

2. Tick “use an external tracker”.
And again, This is probably the hard part for most people. But it’s pretty easy, just put in one of the popular public trackers.

Here are some of the most popular trackers at the moment:

http://tracker.prq.to/announce
http://inferno.demonoid.com:3389/announce
http://tracker.bt-chat.com/announce
http://tracker.zerotracker.com:2710/announce

Put one of these in the tracker box

3. Select single file or dicectory, click NEXT and point to the file or directory you want to share, and click NEXT

4. Do NOT tick “private torrent”

5. Do tick “allow decentralized tracking”

6. Save the torrent and send it to your friends

Happy sharing. Note that you don’t need to upload the torrent to a website or a tracker. This means you control who gets the file and who doesn’t, and it won’t be visible to others!.

If you don't like torrents try MP3 Fiesta. They hold nearly 67,000 albums from nearly 17,000 artists. Prices are around the $0.10 mark for single tracks with full albums coming in at roughly $1.00. Tracks are available from 192kbps and they take major credit cards and PayPal

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172 Responses (Add yours)

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1 Mar 23, 2006 at 16:32 by FredrikQuote Fredrik

If I use a public tracker, will it show on the site in question, or is it only if I upload it to the specific torrentsite, that I have to worry about it? The world might not be interested in vacation pictures, unless it’s very private pictures, in which case I wouldn’t want the rest of the world to see them :)

2 Mar 23, 2006 at 17:28 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

I will NOT show, only if you upload it to the site

3 Mar 23, 2006 at 22:40 by Martin NilssonQuote Martin Nilsson

Well, if it’s person to person, http://yourip:openport/announce works great. Most clients have a built in tracker.

4 Mar 23, 2006 at 23:44 by GeorgeQuote George

What if i want it visible on like a website. Lets say torrent box. I want my torrent on a list. How do i do that

5 Mar 24, 2006 at 00:16 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

Martin, you’re right. But if the torrent has to “stay alive” if you shutdown your pc, the public trackers are the best option.

George, most sites have a “upload torrent” option. Just upload it there and it will show up

6 Mar 24, 2006 at 04:09 by iTechQuote iTech

I have a question.

If you wish to have only your own tracker track the torrents, and have a regular hosting package, like on my http://itech.webwarp.net type, I wish to offer downloadable modified ISO CDs:

- How can I make sure that the torrents would not propagate through any other networks?

- How much bandwidth does the actual “tracking” take up? Any estimates?

Thank you for the info.

7 Mar 24, 2006 at 07:39 by MarkQuote Mark

You can use http://www.prodigem.com
and make the process of making a torrent easy but they only accept legal uploads.

8 Mar 24, 2006 at 07:52 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

Itech.

There are several scripts out there.
The tracking hardly costs any bandwith

http://www.blogtorrent.com/
http://www.torrenttrader.com/

use google to find more

9 Mar 24, 2006 at 08:21 by daimonQuote daimon

here is an interesting flash demo using the wink program for what looks to be the creation of a personal tracker and torrents sent to friends using utorrent (see Martin’s comment above):

http://www.poromenos.org/tutorials/bittorrent

10 Mar 24, 2006 at 09:25 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

Thanks Daimon, The same can be done with azureus. Enable the built in tracker in the options panel and choose “built in” tracker if you create the torrent.

But still, I would recommend to use an external tracker if you want the torrent to “stay alive”.

11 Mar 24, 2006 at 09:34 by RobertQuote Robert

Hi, I just wanted how do I put this on my own site. I have the file and I create the torrent them what? Do I keep the file on my own site or my computer to seed. I’m not sure what to do? Please email me with newbie instructions. station17.robert@gmail.com

12 Mar 24, 2006 at 11:58 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

Robert

Create the torrent using the steps in the tutorial. Then seed it in your torrent client (on your pc)

Then you can copy the torrent you created and put it on your website or give it to anyone you like

13 Mar 24, 2006 at 16:56 by DarkTrancerQuote DarkTrancer

What about webseeding?
I can`t belive that it`s still near impossible to do ,even after how long we have had bittorrent.
If you have a little howto for that it`d be great.
BTW.. I know blogtorrent says it can,but it doesn`t work for anyone with a router.

14 Mar 24, 2006 at 17:53 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

Dark Trancer,

The only webseed script that worked for me is DeHackEd’s Experimental HTTP Seeder

Download here, the readme tells you what to do.

15 Mar 27, 2006 at 10:55 by WillyQuote Willy

Im going 2 try 2 create my own with bittorrent

16 Mar 28, 2006 at 13:13 by paulQuote paul

Please be gentle with me, i am very new to the whole computer generation. I have been downloading films through bittorrent, and i have a lot of good films on dvd that i would like to share. It’s only fair to give if you recieve, besides i don’t want to be blacklisted as someone who just sponges and then closes the client when they have what they want. Has anyone got any tips as to how i can make these films available through torrents!?

17 Mar 28, 2006 at 17:10 by TonyQuote Tony

Dear Ernesto,
Before saying anything, i would like to thank you for your time and for the help you give to all of us!!! You ‘re doing a great job!!!
I created a torrent file with azureus as you described…At the end you say “send it to your friends”….how can i do this my friend??
thanks a lot….

18 Mar 28, 2006 at 18:53 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

Hi Tony,

You can send it by e-mail. Or put it on a floppy and send it trough the “regular” mail ;) And if you have webspace you can put it on there.

Your friends can open the torrent with their torrent client.

19 Mar 28, 2006 at 23:24 by TonyQuote Tony

Hi Ernesto,

Thank you for the answear to my stupid question….I am a beginner in torrents as you found out….

20 Apr 01, 2006 at 01:01 by shimanoQuote shimano

I have made a torrent with maketorrent I have uploaded it to demonoid.com,what now, how do I seed it to get a better ratio, this is my first go at making a torrent,, so as much help as you could give me would be gratefully received

21 Apr 01, 2006 at 13:09 by John MasterQuote John Master

@ shimano:

Just open the torrent in your torrent client and when the dialog comes up, there should be a option to superseed, tick that and click ok and let it seed
ect:
On Utorrent:
files to be download and other options, including supr-seeding

22 Apr 01, 2006 at 14:52 by shimanoQuote shimano

Thannks John much appreciated

23 Apr 04, 2006 at 00:36 by honchoQuote honcho

so how do you do this on bit lord 1.1 any help would be greatfull
?????????

24 Apr 06, 2006 at 19:32 by vanDivXQuote vanDivX

I am quite new to torrenting, reading here about that sending torrents one on one, that is private torrents, I have this question. Would getting a (larger) file off my friend be more efficient and reliable etc., than transfering it via FTP? It seems to me that uTorrent does neat job of dividing files into 512 bytes pieces (and even encrypting them I think if you choose so) and it has great ability to resume (I crashed PC and had no problem getting back on my torrents progress). So if we set aside the sharing side of torrents, is it better than FTPing files?

vanDivX

25 Apr 06, 2006 at 20:58 by Ernesto Quote Ernesto

@vanDivX

I think there is not really much of a difference when you swap files 1on1.

But you’re right about the resume part. Most ftp clients have a resume option, but this sometimes fails to work.

I would always prefer torrents because they tend to be more stable and more efficient.

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