---
name: "apt-transport-debtorrent"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "apt-transport-debtorrent"
version: "0.2.2+b1"
release: "Debian 7 (Wheezy)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/apt-transport-debtorrent"
---

# apt-transport-debtorrent(1)

an APT transport for communicating with DebTorrent

## NAME

apt-transport-debtorrent — an APT transport for communicating with DebTorrent

## DESCRIPTION

The apt-transport-debtorrent package contains the APT debtorrent transport,  which gets installed in */usr/lib/apt/methods*.  It makes it possible to use 'deb debtorrent://localhost:9988/foo distro main'  type lines in your sources.list file. You don't need to run the method  yourself, it will be started automatically by APT.

This manual page documents briefly the options available to the debtorrent method.  For an overview of the DebTorrent program, see the 'debtorrent' package.

You don't actually need this package to use the DebTorrent program, it will  work fine using the regular http:// transport.

However, using this method has some advantages over HTTP. Unlike the  traditional HTTP method, this transport will send all possible requests to  DebTorrent as soon as it recieves them, which will speed up the download  as peers can be contacted in parallel. This method also allows the  DebTorrent client to return files to APT in any order, which is important  since BitTorrent downloads proceed in a random order. Additionally, this  method uses a very similar protocol to HTTP, and so can easily be used to  access a DebTorrent client running on another host.

## OPTIONS

The options below are used by APT when calling the debtorrent method. For a  description of how APT reads these options, see the apt.conf man page. The  options are available to be modified in the  */etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20debtorrent* file.

- **Acquire::debtorrent::Timeout** *seconds*;

  the number of *seconds* of inactivity before  the request will timeout and the method will give up (defaults to 300)

- **Acquire::debtorrent::NoCache** true\|false;

  if this is true, then APT will not store copies of the downloaded  package files in its cache (defaults to false)

- **Debug::Acquire::debtorrent** true\|false;

  whether to output debugging messages while the method is downloading  files (defaults to false)

## SEE ALSO

**[apt.conf(5)](/apt.conf/5.md)**,   **[debtorrent-client(1)](/debtorrent-client/1.md)**

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Cameron Dale \<camrdale@gmail.com\> for  the **Debian** system (but may be used by others).  Permission is  granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under  the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 or any  later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public  License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.