Azureus/Pidgin Integration

That write-up I promised in the "A whole 'nother level of Geekdom' post regarding the implementation of Pidgin as a remote-content-addition-mechanism for Azureus is now done... If you've ever wanted to be able to tell your home torrent box to start downloading something by doing something as simple as sending an Instant Message, give it a glance.

Using Pidgin To Add To Your Azureus Queue Remotely

First things first, there are countless ways to control a torrent-box remotely that will offer you a higher level of control than this procedure, but if your looking for a quick and easy way to add content on-the-fly, without much setup, then this guide is for you.

Requirements:

• Azureus Vuze (latest version recommended)
• Pidgin (latest version recommended)

The goal of this little project is to be able to add torrents to Azureus' queue from any computer with an AIM client. The basic setup is this: Azureus has a feature where it will autoscan a directory for new content at a predetermined time interval (i.e. 60 seconds). Pidgin has a plug-in where it will autoaccept file transfers from pre-defined 'AIM buddies', and save them to a pre-defined directory. By daisy-chaining these two features, we can IM .torrent files to an AIM account running on Pidgin on the torrent box, at which point Pidgin will automatically accept the file transfer, and Azureus will subsequently add the torrent to its queue.

Setting up Pidgin

Create a NEW AIM account that will be used on the torrent-box, say something like Steves-torrent-dedi. Next you are going to want to download and install Pidgin onto the torrent computer. Now, I use Linux almost exclusively, so I downloaded pidgin through my distribution's repositories. However if you are using Windows you can get the installer from Pidgin's Site. Now to actually set up the account settings. When you launch pidgin it will prompt you to enter account information.

Click the Add button and fill out the fields accordingly with the information of the AIM account you just created. Pidgin can use many protocols besides AIM, such as Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, Google Talk, et cetera, so you may be able to use accounts operating on those networks as well, though I haven't tested it myself. It's also probably a good idea to have it remember the account password so it can login automatically.

If after entering all the information, and verifying that you input it correctly, the account still won't log in, you may have to fine-tune some of the advanced settings. The two biggest problems are 'Use SSL' and 'Use Client Login'. Toy around with these, SSL usually needs to be turned off for Pidgin to login to an AIM account successfully.

By this point, you should have the AIM account running on Pidgin, now you need to add your own personal AIM account to the newly created account's buddy list. To add your personal account as a buddy, simply click Buddies>Add Buddy and fill out the form. Once you have done this go Tools>Plugins, and check off autoaccept.

Next click the configure plugin to fine-tune its settings. Blocking transfers from users not on your buddy list is probably a good idea, since ideally you would want you to be the only person capable of doing this. The pop-up is a personal choice. Creating a new directory for each user will save all the transfers from Buddy-A in /folder/Buddy-A/file, this is useful for other applications, but not this one since Azureus will only scan one directory for .torrent files, and it won't do it recursivley. Configure the folder where you want the uploaded torrent files saved, the simpler the better. Despite what the screenshot says I used "/home/mint/Uploads".

Now just right-click the Buddy you want to autoaccept files from, and click autoaccept. Then check autoaccept once again.

Setting up Azureus

Congratulations, your done configuring Pidgin, now onto Azureus. I use version 4.3.1.4 with the classic interface, so you may have to adjust this based on your individual settings. Find your way into the options menu (Ctrl key and , key) and select mode, then change it to advanced.

Now while still in the options menu, expand the "Files" submenu, then highlight "Torrents"(don't expand click the actual menu name). Now check off "Import new .torrents automatically", and enter the directory that pidgin will autosave to. You can also modify the scan interval if you so choose.

And Voila! The setup is done. Try sending some .torrent files to the account set up on the torrent box, from the account you enabled auto accepts from. This isn't the most powerful solution when it comes to remote management, but it is one of the easiest to set up, and so long as you're not doing anything too intensive, it should suit you fine.

Taking Back Control

With the purchase of my new router a week or so ago, I realized that now that I was able to actually forward my ports instead of just opening them, I could now run my site off of a home webserver thus giving me an infinite amount of control over the site, its server, and even access to the operating system itself. This was a tantalizing incentive, and more than enough motivation to devote the time and effort to get it working.

First off, the bandits over at Optimum Online block port 80, the default port for http traffic. In order to unlock it, you have to sign up for their upgrade package at an extra $10 a month. I realize this is a minuscule amount of money, but it's the principle of the matter. They are trying to extort money from their customers by purposely blocking ports that are used in conjunction with certain functionalities, a side effect of which is indirect control on the capabilities of a user's home set-up. I for one would like my overall functionality to be limited by the extent of my knowledge on computer technologies. I shouldn't start working with a new piece of software or a new protocol only to later discover it was fruitless as my ISP for some reason seems to disagree with the assumption that after already paying for an internet connection and all the hardware associated with it, I should have full and unmitigated access to the internet, over any and all of my ports as I see fit. You'd think that when a plumber connects a water line to your house, and you pay for the pipes and water, you'd be allowed to flow it out of whatever sink you wish... But I digress.

Bypassing Optimum's extortion scheme took a bit of resourceful thinking. I wound up daisy-chaining free domain names to manipulate a smooth redirection process. I had registered a second DNS name, and bound that to the webserver so that browsing to domain.com will redirect you to domain2.com:8080 which the server runs on.

While I was designing the site, I made the extra effort to make it conform to the XHTML 1.0 transitional web standards set out by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). However due to the rather unconventional redirection procedure, The W3C validation tool can not access my server, so I validated the site by copying and pasting the code into there validator's direct submission thing. I figure I'd let it be because the average visitor to the site won't care, and those who do could easily copy and paste the source code themselves, but rest assured it is web standard XHTML.

In other news, this web server is not currently hardwired into the router, it's wireless. For some reason my wireless PCI card is supported by Linux out of the box, while the integrated ethernet controller on the motherboard is not. Odd yes, but a cheap fix. Tomorrow I'll rummage through a garage full of old computers looking for a card, and if for some odd reason I don't find one, they run for around $10 at my local Microcenter. I figure the hard line has become a requirement at this point as there is so many things going on on this computer. It's a Bittorrent Dedi, a print-server, a web server, a samba server, and soon to be more. This is a lot of bandwidth to travel of a wireless G connection, so the card is imperative.

edit: W3C validation now fixed. The buttons successfully forward to page to the validation tool, which will tell you the code is web standard.