Opentracker Explained

opentracker
Developer: ("erdgeist")
Programming Language:C
Operating System:Unix-like (Linux, BSD, ...)
Size:~95 KiB
Genre:BitTorrent tracker
License:Beerware

Opentracker is a free (licensed as beerware) BitTorrent peer tracker software (a special kind of HTTP or UDP server software) that is designed to be fast and to have a low consumption of system resources.

Features

Several instances of opentracker may be run in a cluster, with all of them synchronizing with each other. Besides the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) opentracker may also be connected to via User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which creates less than half of the tracker traffic HTTP creates.[1] It supports IPv6, gzip compression of full scrapes, and blacklists of torrents. Because there have already been cases of people being accused of copyright violation by the fact that their IP address was listed on a BitTorrent tracker,[2] opentracker may mix in random IP address numbers[3] for the purpose of plausible deniability.

Technology

It runs completely in RAM, accounting for much of its speed advantage over other tracker software. It is written in C and based on the library libowfat that manages network connections.For some new functionality like the UDP support with IPv6[4] or the syncing of several instances of BitTorrent tracker software, new extensions to the BitTorrent protocol were made.

Adoption

The world's largest tracker at The Pirate Bay switched from their selfmade software Hypercube to opentracker in the end of 2007.[5]

The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation uses it to distribute their own TV shows.[6]

Popular public torrent trackers opentrackr[7] [8] and coppersurfer[9] are known to use opentracker.

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: UDP tracker protocol. March 19, 2006. XBT Tracker. June 1, 2009. July 27, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100727015406/http://xbtt.sourceforge.net/udp_tracker_protocol.html. live.
  2. Web site: Big Media DMCA Notices: Guilty until proven innocent. Ben. Maurer. February 7, 2007. June 1, 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090309212046/http://bmaurer.blogspot.com/2007/02/big-media-dmca-notices-guilty-until.html. March 9, 2009. dead. mdy-all.
  3. Web site: Perfect Deniability Stories from an Opentracker. 2020-08-06. opentracker.blog.h3q.com. December 26, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20231226212522/http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-deniability/. live.
  4. Web site: The IPv6 situation. Dirk ("erdgeist"). Engling. December 28, 2007. January 8, 2013. February 4, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130204033601/http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/12/28/the-ipv6-situation/. live.
  5. Web site: The Pirate Bay Now Running on Opentracker. Ernesto. Van Der Sar. December 8, 2007. TorrentFreak. June 1, 2009. January 31, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100131084738/http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-switches-to-opentracker-071208/. live.
  6. Web site: Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation sets up its own bittorrent tracker. Eirik Solheim. March 8, 2009. January 8, 2013. February 3, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130203152057/http://nrkbeta.no/2009/03/08/norwegian-broadcasting-corporation-sets-up-its-own-bittorrent-tracker/. live.
  7. Web site: OpenTrackr.org - Free to use torrent tracker. February 10, 2019. April 21, 2024. April 3, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20240403212048/http://opentrackr.org/. live.
  8. Web site: OpenTrackr on Twitter. February 10, 2019.
  9. Web site: Open torrent tracker coppersurfer. February 10, 2019. April 21, 2024. October 22, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201022155941/http://coppersurfer.tk/. live.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Opentracker".

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