---
name: "bittorrent-downloader.bittorrent"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "bittorrent"
version: "3.4.2-12"
release: "Debian 10 (Buster)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/bittorrent-downloader.bittorrent"
---

# bittorrent-downloader.bittorrent(1)

download files using a scatter-gather network

## NAME

bittorrent-downloader - download files using a scatter-gather network

## SYNOPSIS

```
btdownloadheadless [ option ... ] URL
btdownloadheadless [ option ... ] filename
btdownloadcurses [ option ... ] URL
btdownloadcurses [ option ... ] filename
btdownloadgui [ option ... ] URL
btdownloadgui [ option ... ] filename
```

## DESCRIPTION

**This manual page documents briefly the btdownloadheadless,** **btdownloadcurses**, and **btdownloadgui** commands. This manual page was written for the Debian distribution because the original program does not have a manual page.

These are all programs that allow a user to download files using bittorrent, a peer to peer, scatter-gather network protocol. They all have the same options.

## OPTIONS

These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (\`-'). A summary of options is included below.

- **--responsefile *filename***

  treat *filename* as a file which the server response was stored in. If this option is used, no filename or URL should be present on the command line.

- **--url *url***

  retrieve the torrent info file from *url*.  If this option is used, no filename or URL should be present on the command line.

- **-i *ip* \| --ip *ip***

  report *ip* as your IP to the tracker

- **--bind *ip***

  bind to *ip* instead of the default

- **--minport *portnum***

  set *portnum* as the minimum port to listen on, counts up if unavailable (default 6881)

- **--maxport *portnum***

  set *portnum* as the maximum port to listen on (default 6889)

- **--saveas *filename***

  store the downloaded file to *filename*, instead of querying user (gui) or  using the filename stored in the torrent info file

- **--max\_uploads *num***

  Only allow *num* uploads at once (default 4)

- **--max\_upload\_rate *kbytes***

  maximum rate to upload at in kilobytes, 0 means no limit (default 0)

- **--keepalive\_interval *secs***

  pause *secs* seconds between sending keepalives (default 120.0)

- **--download\_slice\_size *bytes***

  query for *bytes* bytes per request (default 32768)

- **--request\_backlog *num***

  keep *num* requests in a single pipe at once (default 5)

- **--max\_message\_length *bytes***

  set *bytes* to the maximum length prefix encoding you'll accept over the wire - larger values get the connection dropped (default 8388608)

- **--timeout *secs***

  wait *secs* before closing sockets which nothing has been receieved on (default 300.0)

- **--timeout\_check\_interval *secs***

  check whether connections have timed out every *secs* seconds (default 60.0)

- **--max\_slice\_length *bytes***

  requests from peers larger than *bytes* bytes are ignored (default 131072)

- **--max\_rate\_recalculate\_interval *secs***

  connections that pause longer than *secs* seconds are given reduced rate (default 15.0)

- **--max\_rate\_period *secs***

  set *secs* to the maximum amount of time to guess the current rate estimate represents (default 20.0)

- **--upload\_rate\_fudge *secs***

  set the time equivalent of writing to kernel-level TCP buffer to *secs* (default 5.0)

- **--display\_interval *secs***

  update displayed information every *secs* seconds (default 0.1)

- **--rerequest\_interval *secs***

  request more peers every *secs* seconds (default 300)

- **--min\_peers *num***

  do not rerequest if we have *num* peers already (default 20)

- **--http\_timeout *secs***

  wait *secs* seconds before assuming a http connection has timed out (default 60)

- **--snub\_time *secs***

  wait *secs* seconds for data to come in over a connection before assuming it's semi-permanently choked (default 30.0)

- **--spew *1 \| 0***

  whether to display diagnostic info to stdout.  This option is not useful when using btdownloadcurses or btdownloadgui. (default 0)

- **--max\_initiate *num***

  stop initiating new connections when we have *num* peers (default 40)

- **--check\_hashes *1 \| 0***

  whether to check hashes on disk (defaults to 1)

- **--report\_hash\_failures *1 \| 0***

  whether to report to the user that hash failuers occur (non-fatal, common error) (default 0)

- **--rarest\_first\_priority\_cutoff *num***

  the number of peers which need to have a piece before other partials take priority over rarest first (default 3)

## SEE ALSO

**bttrack**(1), **btmakemetafile**(1), **btlaunchmany**(1).

More information on the **BitTorrent** protocol used for distributing files is available at **http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/protocol.html**

You will also find a full description on the advantages of the protocol in the academic paper **Incentives Build Robustness in BitTorrent** available at **http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/bittorrentecon.pdf**\

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Michael Janssen \<jamuraa@debian.org\>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).