FileSharing How to use Mac's client specific (Step By Step)

Tutorial from BrokenStones, the best mac private tracker!

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Azureus
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Put what you want to share in your BT download folder.
Click File / Create a Torrent

Open your web browser to the upload page and copy/paste the Announce URL.
Use directory for a folder with files in it. (like an album)
Use single file for single files (duh!)

Click browse and find the file or folder you want to make a torrent for.

Click browse to pick where you want the .torrent file to go. (you can move it later)
Click finish and it will make the torrent file.

Torrent file is made, click Close

Now that you have a .torrent file, go to the upload page.
Click Choose File, pick the .torrent file you just made.
This page should be self explanatory, fill in all the blanks that pertain to your upload.
Click Do it!

This is where most people screw up.
You need to download the .torrent file from the site just like you would with any torrent.
The .torrent file you made earlier will not work.

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Bittorrent
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There are a number of excellent bittorrent clients available for the Mac. For sake of simplicity, I'll be using instructions here for use with Andrew Loewenstern's official BitTorrent 4.4.1 client
(you can find a copy here h##p://download.bittorrent.com/dl/BitTorrent-Stable.dmg ).

Once you get used to using the official client, you can graduate to one of the other clients with more advanced features.

Here are the steps to follow, with some advice along the way:
Locate your treasure you wish to share, and prepare it for uploading:
Determine what you wish to upload, and place it in an easy directory to locate. Regular Mac files (both apps and documents) don't travel well in cyberspace without a 'wrapper' of some sort. The preferred ways of 'wrapping' your share is to create a .sit, .sitx, .zip or .dmg image of the file(s) you are planning to share. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will now refer to this 'treasure' file as target.dmg
Generate your torrent file:
Launch BitTorrent 4.4.1 and press ⌘-G to Generate a new torrent file. Click and drag target.dmg over the large box on the far upper right corner of the Generate Torrent File window, as shown below:

Go to the Upload Page
Copy the bolded portion of the announce URL from the site, and paste it into the middle box next to Tracker Url button in the client.
This is important, since this is a private tracker, having your individual passkey embedded in the announce is how your account is properly credited for the amount you upload. Don't ever give it out to anyone!
Click on the Generate button to create your torrent file. You'll be prompted to save it in a directory. I suggest you create a separate folder on your HD for this purpose (just to store your .torrent files). For the purpose of this tutorial, we will now refer to this .torrent file as target.torrent-alpha.
Upload your torrent file:
Go back to the Upload Page and click the Browse button to select target.torrent-alpha. Fill in all the required information on the upload page, and pay special attention to your description. Review the tutorial on how to create a proper description to make sure you include all required information. A piece of helpful advice... create your description ahead of time in your favorite text editor before you get to this step and do a simple cut-and-paste into the Description box on the Upload page at this point. I have created a number of upload description templates myself, as shown below:

Click on the Do it! button, and you are almost finished...
Download a fresh copy of your newly uploaded .torrent file:
Yes, that's right... download a copy of the .torrent file you just created by clicking on the link, just as though you were a leecher about to download this torrent. We will call this .torrent file target.torrent.beta. Place it in the directory where you stored target.torrent.alpha and replace .alpha with .beta. It is actually target.torrent.beta that you will use to seed correctly.
Begin seeding:
Inside BitTorrent 4.4.1, type ⌘-O to Open the target.torrent.beta file, and click on the Start button to begin seeding. The client will ask you where you wish to save the file (just as if you were downloading one). Navigate to the directory containing target.dmg. BitTorrent will ask you if you wish to resume the file... say OK. Then click on the Start button and begin seeding.
Congratulations! You've just started your first of many successful seeds here!

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LH-ABC
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Here are a number of excellent bittorrent clients available for the Mac - and ABC works on OS X, too ;-) Well, at least a mod'ed version called "LH-ABC" (a more general tutorial for that client will come soon)
OS X app, source code and more infos:
main site: link://code.google.com/p/lh-abc/
OS X app build: link://lh-abc.googlecode.com/files/LH-ABC-Mac-v3.2.0++.dmg
forum: link://invisioni.com/forums/?mforum=lhabc
newer Python: link://www.python.org/
wxPython: link://www.wxpython.org/

Most parts of this tutorial are shamelessly stolen from the walnut58's upload tutorial for the Mainline client. Thanks :)

Here are the steps to follow, with some advice along the way:
Locate your treasure you wish to share:
Determine what you wish to upload, and place it in an easy directory to locate... for the purposes of this tutorial, we will now refer to this 'treasure' file as superapp.zip
Create your torrent file:
Launch LH-ABC and go menubar:File->Create Torrent to create a new torrent file. In the new window click on the button "File" and choose the superapp.zip in the file dialogue. Depending on your needs choose the location of the soon created torrent metafile (a special folder, the folder where the shared file is - that is usually a good option for starters -, or a totally different location (you will be asked ;-) ). Also specify the "Piece size". The "Automatic" setting is quite okay, but if you want to make sure your 4 GB torrent has still a reasonable small piece size, set it manually to whatever you prefer. If needed, uncheck the option "Start seeding immediately". Also optional hashes are not needed. All in all the "File Info" tab of the "Create Torrent" window should finally look like this (pic is resized and a bit cropped):

Go to the Upload Page
Copy the bolded portion of the announce URL from the site. Back to LH-ABC and the "Create Torrent" window: Open now the "Tracker Info" tab and paste the announce URL into the relevant field (Press the + button, if you want LH-ABC to remember that announce url, the - button removes the selected url from this memorized list. The Announce list is for multitracker torrents - you want to avoid this in case of BrokenStones...). Also setting the private flag is not needed, the tracker will do this you.
The announce URL you copy&paste should look something like this, minus the brackets:

This is important, since this is a private tracker, having your individual passkey embedded in the announce is how your account is properly credited for the amount you upload. Don't ever give it out to anyone!
Finally the "Tracker Info" tab should look like this:

The "Misc. Info" tab is purely optional. Sometimes a comment can help other users a lot - a good description on the tracker helps usually more ;-)
Click on the Make Torrent button to create your torrent file. In case you are creating a torrent of a folder with multiple files, you will be asked, whether you want make separate .torrents for every item in the folder or not. Usually the answer is "No". Now wait till the torrent is created - the "Make Torrent" window will tell you (the "Done" is a sure sign). Now close all those windows till you are back on the main LH-ABC window. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will now refer to the created .torrent file as superapp.torrent-alpha.
Upload your torrent file:
Go back to the Upload Page and click the Browse button to select superapp.torrent-alpha. Fill in all the required information on the upload page, and pay special attention to your description. Review the uploading rules and guide before finishing this step. A piece of helpful advice... create your description ahead of time in your favorite text editor before you get to this step and do a simple cut-and-paste into the Description box on the Upload page at this point.

Click on the Do it! button, and you are almost finished...
Download a fresh copy of your newly uploaded .torrent file:
Yes, that's right... download a copy of the .torrent file you just created by clicking on the link, just as though you were a leecher about to download this torrent. We will call this .torrent file superapp.torrent.beta. Place it in the directory where you stored superapp.torrent.alpha and replace .alpha with .beta. It is actually superapp.torrent.beta that you will use to seed correctly.
Begin seeding:
Inside LH-ABC, go to menubar:File->Add Torrent/s->From File (or use the relevant button in the toolbar) and choose the superapp.torrent.beta file. If you haven't set a default download folder in the prefs, you will now be asked, where to save the file(s). Choose the proper location of the file(s)! Now the torrent should be listed in the main window. Select it and resume (start) it. LH-ABC will do a hash check of the existing file(s) and start seeding.
Congratulations! You've just started your first of many successful seeds here!

A few more tips:
- Make use of the advanced settings about default directories/folders in the preferences.
- Customize the toolbars and especially the contextual menu of LH-ABC.
- Use the Local Settings for those torrents you have.
- Even better: create some templates and enjoy easy manual, if not automatic configuration :)
- Yes, handling Super-seed Mode is easy - please use it only, when you know what you are doing.
- And yes, you can change seeding modes (normal / super-seeding) per torrent and on the fly.

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Tomato Torrent
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I´m using Tomato Torrent for a long time now and I am satisfied with it cause it is pretty simple. I will introduce the Upload creation step by step:

1. The best is to create an .dmg file of the stuff you want to share.
-Create a new folder and give it the name the Game/App or else got, start the HD Utility and use compression this will make the file bundle smaller and so the amount of data reduces.
-Put in the CD or DVD you want a dmg file from. Click on the CD and click "create Disc Image", save it into your new folder.

2.Now when you got everything done, start Tomato Torrent.

In Tomato you got 5 menues:
-Tomato
-File
-Edit
-Window
-Help

Now Click on the "File Menue", here you find the "Generate Torrents..." Button.

3. A Window will pop up. Now you see 2 buttons at the top of that window: "Remove" (grey at the moment) and "Add". Click on the "Add" Button and choose the folder or dmg file you want to share.
OR
simply drag and drop the folder or dmg file in the menue beneath those buttons.

4. The second step in that window is "Find Peers Using:" the menue is splittet in "Tracker" and "Trackerless". Regular it is set on Tracker and beneath is "Tracker URL" and free space to type in. To use your Torrents on Brokenstones you have to set it on "Tracker", you can find announce-url from the uploading page.
you can also find the URL in the Upload Guide.

Every time you come back to the "Generate Torrents.." window, the adress is automatically shown, if you also made Torrents for other Trackers you got a menue to choose which one you wanna use this time.

5. After choosing your files and setting the Tracker, you can now choose the Piece size, regular it is set to 18, but this seems to be creating pretty slow Torrents, I now tested several sizes of Files, starting from 370mb up to 3 GB and the best size seems to be 10. SO set the Piece Size to 10.

6. The last to Buttons in this window is the "Choose Folder" button to select where you wanna save your Torrent and the "Generate Torrents".
Regular the Desktop is set as destination of the Torrent, but you can change it if you want to.

7. Press the "Generate Torrents" Button and a bar shows up which tells you the progress of creating the Torrent.

Now your Torrent is ready to upload, in case of Brokenstones you have to go back to the page and go to the Upload Buton under the Torrents menue. Type in all information as shown in the Upload Guide.

Very important is that you download the Torrent again from Brokenstones, after creating your upload Brokenstones will give you the information that the Torrent is not shown and inactive before you do not seed with the shown Torrent.
The original created Torrent won´t work, so use the downloaded one from Brokenstones (simply open it with Tomato Torrent). Tomato will check the Upload/Download again, when it´s done it automatically starts seeding and your upload is shown on Brokenstones

With some other Trackers you do not have to download the Torrent again.