Creating Torrent Files with Transmission for use on a private tracker (closed network)

Credits: "PowerUser" [A network specific user pseudonym] with minor edits by Emilie to generalize the instructions to work on any closed network.

This is a tutorial for creating a torrent with Transmission (IMHO, the best BitTorrent client available for Mac OS X and Linux).

There are several ways to create a Torrent of a file or folder.* The simplest way is to drag a folder or file directly to Tranmission's main window, which automagically starts the process of creating your torrent:



Or you could use the "Command-n" (keyboard shortcut) or File > Create Torrent File... (menu item)... then navigate to the file or folder you want to create a torrent of and select it. But I usually prefer the drag-n-drop method.

*Note: Before you create a torrent from a folder of files, make sure that everything looks good. Get rid of any text files used by other trackers (you could temporarily remove them if you're still seeding the torrent on another tracker), and anything else that should not be in your torrent. Also make sure that if there are any edits to file-names or .nfo files (text files with a .nfo extension instead of .txt), etc, you do those BEFORE you make the torrent, or your files won't hashcheck when you go to seed and you'll appear as a leecher to the tracker. There's not much that's more embarrassing than showing up in the "leecher" list on a torrent you're trying to upload.

For the next step, you will need to have your announce URL from the Trackers upload page (see below):



If you've already created a torrent for another site, you should replace the announce URL that's showing with that for private (closed) tracker. DON'T enter more than one tracker on any private torrent you create and make sure the "private" checkbox is selected.

If the tracker you are uploading to uses passkeys, de-select "Open when created", too... Transmission won't be able to seed from the torrent you create since the announce URL for the torrent you create probably won't include your passkey. If you forget and add it, you can remove the torrent from Transmission after saving the .torrent file someplace handy. (This is assuming you have Transmission set up to delete .torrent files when added -- simply select the torrent in Transmission's main window and use the "File > Save Torrent File As..." menu item) I usually save it to my desktop.

Anyway, just click on "Create" and Transmission will save your .torrent file to the selected location (you can also edit the name of the file, if you choose, but don't add any "special characters" as these could cause problems for some of your peers trying to open the file.)

We will move on, now, to the upload page and discuss a few things:



1) The announce URL is at the top of the page (you already used this).

2) Choose the .torrent file you created in the above steps... navigate to your desktop or wherever you saved it and select it.

3) Give it a proper "torrent name" to show up on the Browse page (optionally add a "small description")

4) The description is important: I like to err on the side of "too much information" rather than "not enough". If you are uploading a video file (e.g. in the "Instructional Media" category), you may want to use ScreenCapper to create a single-column "grid" of screenshots at the full resolution of the files (or lower if that would be very large). For most things a few sample screenshots is enough and with ScreenCapper, you can simply select your starting and ending frames and let it create the "grid" image that you upload to an image hosting site (e.g. ImageShack, etc). I also usually use MediaInfo Mac to provide the "technical details" of media files (audio and/or video). It's nice to provide additional links for more information, e.g. links to an Amazon page, etc. In Linux you can use the Audio/Video tab of Nautilus' file properties page to obtain the details.

5) Select the most appropriate category for your upload and click on the "Do it!" button.

6) Download the torrent from the Tracker as you would any other (the tracker adds your passkey, which is necessary to start seeding), and make sure you select the folder ONE UP in the file hierarchy from the file or folder you created the torrent from as the Download Location if it's not in your default download folder (click "Change..." in the add torrent dialog and navigate to the appropriate folder or drag-n-drop it on the selection panel if you already have it open in a Finder window).

7) I always like to click on "Verify Local Data..." to make sure that I have still got everything in the right place and that I'm showing as having 100% of all the torrent files. It's easy to forget and make changes after creating the torrent. If you don't see the files check to 100% (and they all say 0%), you probably have the wrong download folder selected. In this example, I selected my "Audiobooks-Misc Non-fiction" folder as the "download location", inside of which is the folder I dragged to Transmission to create the torrent.

Happy uploading!