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How to get PhoenixOS with aria2 and metalinks

Page history last edited by Paul G. Taylor 13 years, 10 months ago

 


 

I have been playing around with and learning about metalinks and aria2 which uses them and have written a short blog on this topic at: --

 

Distributing and Downloading ISO and other large files.

 

 

Update : A new release is now available at http://www.raccomputers.com/phoenixosFH042210.iso

 

Simple How-to for distributing an ISO via FTP, Torrent and Metalink

 

Creating a new .torrent file : --

 

Any one who has the complete and verified ISO can make the torrent file easily in a few steps on the command line.

 

Pre-requisites : installed version of Vuse, KTorrent, Transmission or other torrent client : Full, verified copy of the target ISO file :

 

  1. Open Transmission and click on 'File > New'

    A dialogue box opens, in which to select either a file or folder. Select File and navigate to the folder where the ISO is located, select the ISO file and click on 'OK'.

     

    http://picasaweb.google.com/paulgtaylor91/NewTorrent#5468744856437097346

     

     

  2. Transmission will now create the .torrent file, in the same directory as the ISO file. This should be uploaded to the site which announces the torrent and can be also made available in the same URL as the ISO on-line.

     

    That's about it!

     

 

 

More information is available at http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/#maketorrent

 

              Torrent file available at  ... waiting ...

 

 

To create the Metalink : --

 

  1. Assemble the data required : URL of the target ISO at all mirrors : URL of the .torrent file :

     

     

  2. Open a web browser at http://www.metalinker.org/generator/  and fill in the form.

     

     

  3. When satisfied that all data is correct, click on the  'Create Metalink' button to complete the process.

     

     

 

 

               Metalink available at ... waiting ...

 

Download with aria2 and Metalink

 

  1. Download the metalink file into the directory where you want to store the target ISO file.
  2. Locate a Konsole window in the above directory and run aria2 with the following command : --

     

    aria2c name-of-metalink-file.metalink

     

    [Note aria2c and not just aria2 - the 'c' stands for 'client' I think]

     

     

  3. If the Metalink file includes both FTP and Torrent, then aria2 will download and check each chunk from whatever source gives the best download speed.

     

    The entire file will be checked on completion, guaranteeing that the downloaded file is an exact copy of the target ISO file.

 

 

Rescuing a failed download with aria2 and .torrent file.

 

Although using aria2 with a metalink and/or including a .torrent file should guarantee a good download, if you have already downloaded the ISO file and it has been corrupted in some way and fails the md5sum check, you can still recover most of the download by using aria2, with the .torrent file, and only need to download only chunks that fail the md5sum check rather than the entire file.

 

Starting aria2 in the same directory as the failed ISO and with the .torrent file downloaded into same directory, aria2 will first check the ISO and determine which, if any, chunks are invalid. Then it will download again only those chunks that failed, saving time and bandwidth, then verifying the entire ISO file to ensure a good download.

 

aria2c -T name-of-iso-file.iso.torrent http://URL-of-name-of-iso-file.iso   should be all you need to type.

 

Actually, rather, type this : 'aria2c -T --check-integrity=true  name-[TAB].[TAB] and you should get 'aria2c -T --check-integrity =true  name-of-iso-file.iso.torrent ' , then copy and paste the URL into the Konsole window and hit 'Enter'

 

aria2c will then show a progress bar as it checks the integrity of the ISO file. If it passes the test then aria2c will immediately go into seeding the torrent mode. All this is actually independent of whether or not there is a viable swarm in the torrent from which to download, as the torrent file simply works as a list of chunks' check-sums to verify conformity with the target file.

 

 

Warning - Out of date data below . To be up-dated when newer information is available ...

 

 

Now I have created a torrent for the beta release of phoenixos030410.iso which can be downloaded here.

 

The main download URL for this file is at http://www.raccomputers.com/phoenixos030410.iso

 

To download this file with aria2, therefore, the procedure is : --

 

  1. Open a Konsole window in the directory where you want to keep the downloaded file.

    You can do this by navigating in your file browser to the directory and then choosing 'Open in Console'

    or else just open the Konsole and cd to the directory.

     

     

  2. Now download or move the torrent file into that directory.

    You can use [code]wget -c  http://pgtips91.pbworks.com/f/phoenixos030410.iso.torrent [/code]   to do that or use your favourite down-loader in your browser.

     

     

  3. Now use aria2 to download combining both the torrent and the HTTP download URL, like this : --

     

    [code] aria2c -T phoenixos030410.iso.torrent   http://www.raccomputers.com/phoenixos030410.iso [/code]

     

    This will start the dual download, verify each chunk as it is downloaded, either from the torrent or the server, and when the download is completed, verify the completed file.

     

    No more failed downloads!

 

 

Metalinks

 

You can create a metalink on-line by going to http://www.metalinker.org/generator/

 

Simply fill in the form, generate the metalink and download it to use.

 

More information on creating torrent files and metalink files using metalink.py, as well as general discussion about kget in KDE4, here : --

 

http://francis.giannaros.org/blog/2008/02/02/kget-kdes-download-manager/

 

René Leonhardt said on February 3, 2008 at 4:47 pm

 

If anyone wants to try Metalinks, a very convenient way to create them is to use the Metalink Library:

# Create *.iso.metalink and *.iso.torrent from local files

metalink.py –version=10.3 –create-torrent=http://tracker.opensuse.org:6969/announce *.iso

http://code.google.com/p/metalink-library/

 

Home of main project appears to be : --

http://sourceforge.net/projects/metalinks/

Metalinks is a project to facilitate data distribution over mirrors and P2P networks. It does so by defining an XML format and the tools to handle these.

The metalink files contain all the information needed to download and verify files.

 

 

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