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Switch rTorrent/Transmission

Last Updated: Nov 14, 2011 09:11PM CST

Switching from rTorrent to Transmission or vise versa is easy.

For all of the directions below, you should start by simply changing your "Installation, Version" in your Dashboard Configuration tab, save the change, and rebuild the seedbox. (You will not loose any of your personal data.)

After that, you may want to get the torrents you had running in rTorrent started up in Transmission, (or vise versa,) here's how to do that:

Moving from rTorrent to Transmission:

NOTE: Please see separate directions below if you have a Server Mini (has two disks.)
  1. Login to your seedbox via SFTP. (See here.)
  2. First move the data for your torrents from
    /data/<user  name>/rutorrent/  into
    /data/<user name>/transmission/downloads/
  3. Then move the .torrent files from 
    /data/<user  name>/rutorrent/.session/  into 
    /data/<user  name>/transmission/info/watch/
    (Don't move the .torrent.rtorrent or .torrent.libtorrent_resume files, in fact it's a good idea to delete those files as they will cause problems if you ever switch back to rTorrent again.)
  4. In your web interface you should now see Transmission 'verifying data' on each torrent, and it will start them automatically when it finishes. That's it!


Moving from Transmission to rTorrent:

NOTE: Please see separate directions below if you have a Server Mini (has two disks.)
  1. Login to your seedbox via SFTP. (See here.)
  2. First move the data for your torrents from 
    /data/<user  name>/transmission/downloads/  into 
    /data/<user name>/rutorrent/
  3. Then move the .torrent files from 
    /data/<user  name>/transmission/info/torrents/  into 
    /data/<user  name>/rutorrent/.watch/ 
  4. In your web interface you should now see rTorrent 'checking data' on each torrent, and it will start them automatically when it finishes. That's it!


Seedbox Server Mini users:

With the Server Mini, .torrent files that are added through the watch directory will be started on your /data disk by default. If any of those torrent's data's are on your /storage disk, Transmission will re-download these torrents because it doesn't find the related data. There are two ways to avoid this problem, if you just have a few torrents it will be easier for you to follow Method 1, if you have many torrents it could be time consuming to add each torrent back in by hand as seen in Method 1, so you may want to use Method 2 instead. The basic difference is that for Method 2 you will need to access your seedbox via SSH.


Method 1:

rTorrent to Transmission:

  1. Login to your seedbox via SFTP. (See here.)
  2. First move the data for your torrents from
    /data/<user  name>/rutorrent/  into
    /data/<user name>/storage/  (Remember, /storage is symlinked to /data/<user name>/storage/ - effectively making them the exact same directory.)
  3. Any data already on your /storage disk can stay where it is. 
  4. Then download to your personal computer the .torrent files from 
    /data/<user  name>/rutorrent/.session/ 
    (Don't download the .torrent.rtorrent or .torrent.libtorrent_resume files, in fact it's a good idea to delete those files as they will cause problems if you ever switch back to rTorrent again.)
  5. In your web interface, click the add torrent icon and add each .torrent file you downloaded, taking care to choose the proper disk where the data is stored, which in this case is /storage. (Or /data/<user name>/storage/.)
  6. Transmission will then start 'verifying data' on each torrent, and it will start them automatically when it finishes. That's it!


Transmission to rTorrent:

  1. Login to your seedbox via SFTP. (See here.)
  2. First move the data for your torrents from
    /data/<user  name>/transmission/downloads/  into
    /data/<user name>/storage/  (Remember, /storage is symlinked to /data/<user name>/storage/ - effectively making them the exact same directory.)
  3. Any data already on your /storage disk can stay where it is. 
  4. Then download to your personal computer the .torrent files from 
    /data/<user  name>/transmission/info/torrents/ 
  5. In your web interface, click the add torrent icon and add each .torrent file you downloaded, taking care to choose the proper disk where the data is stored, which in this case is /storage. (Or /data/<user name>/storage/.)
  6. rTorrent will then start 'checking data' on each torrent, and it will start them automatically when it finishes. That's it!


Method 2:

rTorrent to Transmission:

  1. Login to your seedbox via SSH secure shell. (See here.)
  2. First move any data for your torrents from /data/admin/rutorrent/  into /data/admin/storage/ with the following command:
    mv /data/admin/rutorrent/* /data/admin/storage/
    (Remember, /storage is symlinked to /data/admin/storage/ - effectively making them the exact same directory.)
  3. Any data already on your /storage disk can stay where it is. 
  4. Stop your transmission daemon. Type:
    sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-admin stop
  5. Login to your seedbox via SFTP, (See here.)
    Find, edit, and save the following change to this file:
    /data/admin/transmission/info/settings.json
    Take special care not to change any syntax in the file.
    Change this line:
    "download-dir": "/data/admin/transmission/downloads/",
    to this line:
    "download-dir": "/data/admin/storage/",
  6. Now start the Transmission daemon back up with:
    sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-admin start
  7. The following command will move all of the .torrent files from rTorrent and start them automatically in Transmission - It will point Transmission to the data on your /storage disk, so the data needs to be there and should not be inside any manually created subfolders. (Again, remember, /storage is symlinked to /data/admin/storage/ - effectively making them the exact same directory.)
    mv /data/admin/rutorrent/.session/*.torrent /data/admin/transmission/info/watch/
    (Don't move the .torrent.rtorrent or .torrent.libtorrent_resume files, in fact it's a good idea to delete those files as they will cause problems if you ever switch back to rTorrent again, you can do this with the command rm /data/admin/rutorrent/.session/*.torrent.* )
  8. Transmission will now start 'verifying data' on each torrent, and it will start them automatically when it finishes.
  9. After it finishes, go to your Dashboard 'rebuild' tab and choose 'save my data' and rebuild the box there to reset everything back to normal operation. That's it!

Transmission to rTorrent:

  1. Login to your seedbox via SSH secure shell. (See here.)
  2. First move any data for your torrents from /data/admin/transmission/downloads/  into /data/admin/storage/ with the following command:
    mv /data/admin/transmission/downloads/* /data/admin/storage/
    (Remember, /storage is symlinked to /data/admin/storage/ - effectively making them the exact same directory.)
  3. Any data already on your /storage disk can stay where it is. 
  4. Stop your rTorrent daemon. Type:
    sudo /etc/init.d/rtorrent-admin stop
  5. Login to your seedbox via SFTP, (See here.)
    Find, edit, and save the following change to this file:
    /etc/rtorrent-admin.conf
    Take special care not to change any syntax in the file.
    Change this line:
    directory = /data/admin/rutorrent
    to this line:
    directory = /data/admin/storage
  6. Now start the rTorrent daemon back up with:
    sudo /etc/init.d/rtorrent-admin start
  7. The following command will move all of the .torrent files from Transmission and start them automatically in rTorrent - It will point rTorrent to the data on your /storage disk, so the data needs to be there and should not be inside any manually created subfolders. (Again, remember, /storage is symlinked to /data/admin/storage/ - effectively making them the exact same directory.)
    mv /data/admin/rutorrent/.session/*.torrent /data/admin/transmission/info/watch/
  8. rTorrent will now start 'checking data' on each torrent, and it will start them automatically when it finishes.
  9. After it finishes, go to your Dashboard 'rebuild' tab and choose 'save my data' and rebuild the box there to reset everything back to normal operation. That's it!

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