How To Download Torrent with Command Line in Ubuntu
Discover how you can download the contents of your torrents in Ubuntu Linux with commands in this handy tutorial.
What is a torrent file?
A torrent file contains specific information about the location of a file; although it does not include information about its contents, it only provides information on the location of the different parts of the destination file.
To use a torrent, we must download a Torrent client, and once we have it installed with the link that we have, we have the possibility of downloading it through several trackers.
With a torrent, we have different download options and it is very possible that we improve the bandwidth by not using a download manager.
Today we will see how to download a torrent using the terminal of Ubuntu 16.04
Install the Torrent Client on Ubuntu
First, we must download the torrent client through which we will have access to trackers for download. For this tutorial we will use the client transmission-cli ¸ so we will enter the following command in the terminal:
sudo apt install transmission-cli
Add a Torrent File using the URL in Ubuntu
We will see how adding the file is a simple task using this torrent client.
For this tutorial, we will download an .iso image of Fedora 24 Workstation.
The syntax for adding the torrent file in Ubuntu using transmission-cli is as follows:
transmission-cli Link_URL
In this case we will download the Live edition of Workstation , for which we must enter the following. ~ / Downloads refers to where the torrent file will be stored.
transmission-cli https://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-Workstation-Live-i386-24.torrent -w ~/Downloads
This method allows a quick download of the file.
Add a Torrent File using Magnet Links in Ubuntu
Transmission-cli also has the possibility to download magnet links, but what is a magnet link?
A magnet link is a free file and licensed by GPL and is a file similar to the torrent but with the difference that makes the calculation of the hash outside the user's system.
The download using a magnet link is more direct than using the torrent. Magnet link is made up of the following scheme:
Magnet: This is the identifier of the magnet protocol .
?xt=urn:btih: is the identifier of the BitTorrent protocol .
Application identifier: It varies depending on the application.
&dn=name: In this field, we will indicate the name of the application or item to be downloaded.
In our case of Fedora 24 we must enter the following in the terminal:
transmission-cli magnet:?xt=urn:btih:2b1be9ebfd494530&dn=Fedora-Workstation-Live-i386-24.iso -w ~/Downloads
Download Torrent File using torrent files on Ubuntu
This is another of the options we have for downloading torrents files in Ubuntu and is using the well-known wget and the torrent file path.
In this case we will use the following command:
wget https://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-Workstation-Live-i386-24.torrent
Later we execute the following. With this we will execute the file downloaded with wget.
transmission-cli Fedora-Workstation-Live-i386-24.torrent -w ~/Downloads
Let's use transmission-cli to download in a safe, agile and practical way all the necessary torrents files, but remember that everything must be done under the legal parameters of each country to avoid incurring any type of crime.